Santa Monica

Seven young artists, each with a different style, give “Variations Los Angeles: The Image” an air of wild, ungainly invention. One of the strongest works is Lauren Lesko’s monotone landscape sporting three shiny red helmet-like hats. It’s a disturbing piece that seems to unite nature, art history and individuals in a single silent metaphor. Jacci Den Hartog’s improbable black rubber sculpture are delightfully wacky and strong statements about fluid reality. One piece, part sport shop, part natural world, combines an oozing plaster bucket with an elongated net of black rubber balls. It playfully suggest human and industrial forms all at once.

The rest lacks the same level of maturity. Elizabeth Bryant’s photogram images are keen at identifying and recycling trite symbols to indicate nostalgia and more cosmic theories. They sometimes fall victim to their own sources and come off as superficial. Lauri Sing’s painted and gouged plaster and wax panels are an alluring mix of figurative fragments with geometric allusion. They pique the senses but leave the mind adrift.

Richard Gate’s suspended cubes and spinning drill bits in alien landscapes are small, appealing bits of embellished printmaking. Perhaps overly simple, their directness is still appreciated next to Brian Butler’s collages. They use bits of old books in an overly designy set of dense one liners. Marian Galczenski’s multi-fragment panels combine all sorts of real and painted imagery.

The artists’ technical skills are high, but many are still struggling to engage the work’s intellectual potential. (Bachofner Gallery, 926 Colorado Ave., to Sept. 9.)