La Cienega Area

In Richard Bosman’s recent paintings the empty ocean is a stark and restless caldron. As image follows image with the narrative consistency of a film clip, the sea seems to whip itself from misted calm to churning turbulence in a matter of moments.

Bosman’s goopy paint makes for an ironic twist on the churning, liquid sea. Motion freezes in the thick paint and it is up to the freewheeling brush work and serial imagery to send the imagination spinning off into storms at sea or fragile vessels pitted against rising watery mountains. These are scenes drowning in the threat of impending disaster. But there is seldom more evidence than the distant wheeling of crude scavenger gulls in “Aground” to mark the mishap.

Despite the leaden quality of most of the heaving water, Bosman is not without a wry sense of humor in his dealings with the hackneyed subject of cresting waves. He even includes that tired old standby of the surf painters, the translucent breaking wave. But it’s clear from the gutsy paint hammering out repetitious images that these are symbolic, emotional oceans not meant to be pretty pictures. (Asher/Faure, 612 N. Almont Drive, to Nov. 26.)