Santa Monica

Stephanie Weber’s delicately colored collage images make sheer fabric squares and sheets of rumpled paper seem to drift, like sodden flotsam in a slow-moving river.

In the “Undertow Series,” the river is a lethargic, crystal clear surface that toys with the illusion of depth using clever bits of water-induced magnification and splashy whitecaps of painterly line. But the sinking patches of paper get repetitive and can’t equal the tidal wave of activity and power in the acrylic-on-wood panel paintings of the “Nsiya Series.”

Here, the painting’s surface is fast moving but murky: a pale fleshy colored scum combed by sweeping, tarry lines. Denied depth by the cloudy current, the painting pops forward into real space to get some breathing space. The shallow panels pushing out from the rest of the painting often magnify the raging torrent below like microscopic slides alive with bacteria.

Nicely integrated into some of Weber’s painterly tides are knotty biomorphic shapes created with a photocopier. Rich with texture and volume, their presence changes the gushing painterly water into suggestions of trees or bodies, extending the watery metaphor for change to include the planet and humanity. (Merging One Gallery, 1547 6th St., to Oct. 14.)