Santa Monica

Tom Knechtel is a miniaturist painter who takes man’s relationship to the animal kingdom as his central subject. His latest body of work focuses on bats, a gentle creature that’s been getting a bum rap in popular lore for centuries. Knechtel himself takes a slightly hysterical view of this fragile demon, describing them as “malevolent orchids” and portraying them as formidable beasts lording over a dark, spooky realm.

An art history teacher partial to the rococo, Knechtel paints with a medieval touch and incorporates elements of Bosch, Tiepolo, and Redon. A stickler for detail, he draws with the precise anatomical accuracy of Audubon, but handles color and paint like a cloisonne artist--his pictures are nasty little jewels. Traces of humor can be detected in these wickedly beautiful studies, but they’re mostly creepy. A piece titled “A Dream of Nature (An Opera)” looks like “The Peaceable Kingdom” as interpreted by Ken Russell.

Also on view is “In His Image,” eight chilly icons by Ann Preston that shiver with all the warmth of an operating room. Resembling props suitable for Tarkovsky’s haunting sci-fi epic “Stalker,” Preston’s work gives off an oppres-sive sense of weight and addresses the viewer with the cold authority of corporate logos. (Pence Gallery, 908 Colorado Ave., to Jan. 14.)