Santa Monica

Peter Bradtke is a deft photo-realist searching for a subject on which to hang his virtuosity.

He makes paintings that ape the look of movie stills. In one photo-realist scene, the protagonist--a self-portrait--hangs a cigarette limply from his lip, hat pushed back and brow furrowed like Jack Webb, stumped. Above lolls a long-legged siren in lace underwear. Both figures are locked in a watery background with all the special effects of 19th-Century Impressionism. With rare exceptions, there is a more genuine sense of imminent action in Bradtke’s paintings of solitary vintage phones waiting to ring.

There’s an intriguing triple paradox in his idea of painting movie stills. By definition, movies move and photos stop their action, producing a stalemate. By duplicating the movie still in paint as an original art work, he adds another layer to the riddle of an image copying itself into some conceptual no man’s land while we watch inertly. In today’s image-and-information glut, the passive symbol has replaced experience. In that context, Bradtke’s art sits well. But a concept is not enough to raise these works above the level of slightly self-involved realist acrobatics. (Brendan Walter Gallery, 1001 Colorado Ave., to Feb. 10.)