Wilshire Center

Osaka-born, Otis-educated Kikaru Hayakawa makes mixed media constructions that merge everything from painting--both figurative and abstract--to collage, and found bibelots. It’s all used to create an unfocused narrative that gets images and associations from Eastern and Western art, science, myth and popular culture. They bounce off one another in quick salvos like bumper cars at the fair.

“Iconosophia” alternates panels painted with marbled, fluid gestures in acidic yellows or comic strip that coalesce into images of Oriental statuary. Between each panel rectangles that look like charred earth or burned paper are imbedded with barely readable museum texts explaining African masks or other artifacts.

Hayakawa is after a visual analogue for the ineffable way we experience reality, hoping to show that there is a higher order of consciousness that transcends culture and context. This is a huge agenda for a young artist and in many works it seems like the tail is wagging the dog. It’ll be interesting to watch a promising, thoughtful newcomer clarify his questions and his pictorial answers over time. (Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., to Jan 6.)