The Galleries : Santa Monica

The new and the tried and the true are paired in a show of Lilliputian figurative bronzes by Mary Chemenko and predictable mixed-media paintings by veteran L.A. abstractionist Connor Everts.

Chemenko makes sometimes provocative, sometimes hokey sculptures that perch teeny figures atop pedestals fashioned after fragments of classic fluted columns. Alone, any one of the figurines has the precious, aged tooling of a rare treasure in the recesses of an antique store. Presented in intentionally discordant combos--a 3-inch prehistoric elephant set alongside a bramble of bare branches, a teeny, expertly crafted hog feeding on the bronze words paint and noise-- they take on any number of contemporary art/life meanings and are, at their best, refreshingly open ended and zany.

Everts does what he has done best since the ‘60s. He makes large handsome canvases that hold all manner of graphic information--highway signs, random numbers, stenciled letters, nonsensical syllables, graffiti, purely decorative painted gestures--in a tight, Cubist-based space. Illusions of depth are carefully controlled to make images look as if they’re pressed against glass, jutting out and receding to vie for attention. As deftly worked metaphors for a media-saturated culture that requires viewers to take in dizzying volumes of information from speeding cars, hyperactive TV commercials, bus benches and cereal box tops, these paintings are still germane. (Ruth Bachofner Gallery, 926 Colorado Ave., to March 11.)