Hollywood

Frederick Wight, longtime director of the UCLA art galleries that now bear his name, teacher and scholar is probably best remembered for his years of involvement with the arts. But at his death in 1986 he was also an accomplished and prolific painter of distinctly Californian landscape themes. His palm trees, Joshua trees and earthquake scenes are uniquely part of the California experience. And, although they progressed from representational to increasingly abstract works in the tradition of Georgia O’Keeffe and Walter Dove, each maintains the Southland’s intense clarity of color and light.

Wight’s representational paintings of his wife’s English garden surrounding their Brentwood home make up the current showing of paintings from the artist’s estate. They are vibrantly drawn and colored images of abundance that almost dance with enthusiasm for the lushness of life. Wight combined drawing and painting in a loose, nonchalant style that charges the image with vitality. Gestural and brushy orange trees and potted cactus seem to explode with golden fruit and bright blossoms. But all that exuberance seems amazingly refined and well mannered, as if trained by the artist to accept the civilized confinement of blandly abstracted lawns and pots that surround them. The color, however, remains totally uninhibited. It’s ripe and sensual, radiating such desert bright intensity that even negative space seems solid and alive. (Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., to Feb. 4.)