La Cienega Area

Surrealist intuitive inner space turns New Mexico tribal in Lee Mullican’s newest acrylic and oil paintings. Clearly more figurative than the darkly mysterious tapestry-like images of his “Guardian” series, these paintings are also considerably less formal. Spontaneous expressionistic gesture and line sweeps over the canvasses, spawning primitive figures of raw energy. This is most clearly felt in “Blue Bringer,” a dynamic totemic figure with a Klein-blue body that seems to congeal out of the sky wearing a radiant cipher for a mask and a lightning-bolt chest tattoo.

The power of these figures lies in their mysterious duality--part human, part ghost. Normally white, the sinuous bodies suggest clay-covered native dancers, strangely animated corpses or wispy phantasms. Each head is a weird amalgam of a small bright-yellow rectangular mask with rudimentary eyes and a larger mask that sits over it like a shape shifting aura.

Mullican’s unpremeditated, accomplished brushwork and the symbology he is exploring ultimately wither the limited palette of colors he is using. Pretty pastels ignited by bold yellow zips or seeped in deep blue give the images a dandified Southwestern chic that tends to trivialize the content. (Herbert Palmer Gallery, 802 N. La Cienega Blvd., to Oct. 27.)