Wilshire Center

Wayne Forte’s huge hulking figures, forcefully crammed into large rectangular canvases, have a bulging corporeality that teeters on the edge of abstraction. It only tumbles completely over the edge once--in “Balanca,” an almost indecipherable female nude buried amid a cascade of red line and gestural color. There is a power to the nearly obliterated figure that far outstrips several of the more recognizable figures in other paintings--perhaps because the abstract form can be appreciated for its skillful expressionistic freedom.

Yet Forte is quite capable of finding emotional incisiveness in the sweep of a dripping brush on a more representational image. “Olho Dourado” allows disintegrating veins of blue wash to drip exhaustion from the ruddy limbs and torso of a collapsed athlete. However, when the artist tightens up and uses his body-in-a-box formula on art history or to make huge life drawings he loses much of the figure’s emotional edge. The color and drawing suddenly seempat.

In paintings such as the draped “Paola” the color, laid down in short daubs, reinforces the constriction of the body yet seems like a technical exercise. The rich color contrasts of the painting may be alluring but it doesn’t convey a real sense of involvement. More evocative is the the bulging breadth of the massive “Joe” who stands in white, triangular underwear looking over his naked hot pink shoulder. (Ivey Gallery, 154 N. La Brea Ave., to Jan. 21.)