Santa Monica

Lauri Sing and Michael Brangoccio are two young painters who venture into different kinds of mixed-media formats, with vastly different results. Sing’s work reads as dreamily introverted; Brangoccio’s, as the product of an extrovert playing coy.

In Sing’s multipart constructions, dry, painted images of antique Greek statues on fabric-covered wood are juxtaposed with pieces of found wood and hinged sheets of rusting steel. Long, curving arcs cut into the wood resonate oddly with the veiled, intangible quality of the figures. The arcs suggest an astronomical reference. The antique figures are embodiments of harmony and proportion. Together, the abstract markings and the figures evoke a world of timeless order and mathematical perfection, compared with the “chaos” of the accidental drips and scuff marks.

Brangoccio has a knack for design. The problem is that he doesn’t differentiate between the superficially pretty, easy gesture and the kind of rewarding visual surprise that is more hard-won. His spare paintings incorporate collaged printed papers--wallpaper, cigarette packets--and calligraphic swoops of black paint on textured white surfaces. He’ll isolate a single rose from a swatch of wallpaper (“Scandalize”) or stipple a patch of rose paint with lots of wiggly little black strokes (“Rote Figur”). But these gestures are too self-consciously cute for their own good, as if he is listening for applause. (Ruth Bachofner Gallery, 926 Colorado Ave., to Nov. 25.)