Hollywood

Two realists show us the breadth the genre can span. For two decades Norman Lundin has been making quiet, classical pastel still lifes and interiors. He has limited his pictorial variables to a few tightly composed props: a draped table placed frontally in a shallow space before a wall with solitary jars arranged in a neat, open array. Often bathed in the hazy atmosphere and fuzzied edges that Lundin’s favorite dry pigments produce, these isolated objects are not to be confused with the visual poems of say, Martha Alf. Lundin is a traditional realist who seems most interested in capturing the empirical qualities of his subjects.

Recently he began transfering images to oil on canvas and the painted works do not have the unity or impact of his pastels. It is not that the oil pigment gets the better of Lundin; he can make broad areas of drab gray come alive to mimic moisture stained walls, or duplicate the quality of glass reflecting indirect light from an unseen source. Lundin paints what he sees, but the drawing “Corridor and Stairway No. 3,” a hushed precisionist arrangement of walls, entry ways and shadows, is good because Ludin inserts things we can’t see and touch--namely mystery.

Then there is Wes Christensen whose unassailable miniature realism packs a psychological punch. Only a few inches in size and rendered with single-bristle precision in bold, opaque gouaches, the works look like contemporary illuminations. Everyday scenes like a couple huddling at an antique store, a man quietly dunking biscuits in his tea or a distraught housewife weighing an erotic eggplant exude an illogically scary, vaguely sexual portent. “Countertransference” invites us into a warm music room where sits a genial granddad type who sports a large, high-caliber rifle. “Dibutade (Corinthian Maid)” spoofs the hallowed halls of art generally and realist art specifically. “Ceasura” is a tanned nude who stretches like a satisfied cat after a nap in the sun. (Space Gallery, 6015 Santa Monica Blvd. to Nov. 25.)