Santa Monica

Vernon Fisher’s new paintings link images to words by the juxtaposition of a large black wall covered with white lettering in the center of the gallery. The text integrates a short narrative about the Navy’s super-sensitive navigation land signal with a story of a tightrope walker falling off the wire. Just as both stories seem to be allegories for the risky business of negotiating through life, the paintings make our vulnerability clear in visual parables.

The most densely layered paintings, “Imperfect Verticals” combine small images of trees which symbolize life altered by planning, deceit and destruction. As usual, the images are from popular American culture and include a chalk cartoon on Pinocchio’s lengthening nose and a palm tree speared by debris from a nuclear explosion.

Fisher’s subtle ability to tumble visual and literary metaphors together to achieve understanding is based on the realization that thought is not linear, it’s cumulative. (Fred Hoffman Gallery, 912 Colorado Ave., to May 27).