Santa Monica

Gianni Dessi is a member of a Rome-based group that insists it’s not just another pretty “ism.” Members work and write together, and issue conflicted manifestoes. Dessi’s lushly encrusted, violently attractive abstractions are embellished with swaths of linen, raw wood or metal and mirror the group’s often overly ambitious desire to hit every base, be all things to all people. His works also demonstrate the painterly brillance that has won the group serious international acclaim, and the stagy posturing that can make his additions of metal rings or his quick “site specific” gestures look a little programmatic.

As a whole, works are characterized by subdued, rather Romantic fields of sediment, such as color worked to emphasize dramatic, even sublime light moving over wide areas of luminous oil paint. In “Terramoto,” a black elongated triangle teeters on its apex in a rich mustardy expanse, a puff of grayish smoke escaping from its upturned base. In “Circolo Blu,” velvety royal blues are broken by a large oval of raw wood whose center holds a painted egg shape containing--like some secret--a letter symbol.

Less pomp and lots of circumstance characterize a concurrent show of wonderful drawings by L.A. modernist William Brice. In various media from inks to charcoal, the small works encapsulate with winsome, intimate charm Brice’s long time vocabulary of biomorphic geometry. A landscape of river inlets and boulders could just as easily be a Miro-ish aquatic world. The wry, erotic hand of Marcel Duchamp’s mechanistic drawings and a touch of David Smith’s “Cubis” can be seen in works that look at once like boxy figures, plumbing, topography, gadgets and page upon page of disciplined, hone-your-skill design. (L.A. Louver, 55 N. Venice Blvd. and 77 Market St., to April 15.)