Santa Monica

Symbolic Special Effects: Los Angeles artist C.A. Michel’s installations have a forced quality, as if new-age consciousness has been gussied up by movie magic special effects. It’s not hard to understand the significance of the tableaux or admire their craft but it’s difficult not to be put off by their simplistic symbolism, which has so little to say for all the effort involved.

In two settings, the artist has created translucent satin and fiberglass figures and placed them in scenarios that promote a kind of pop mysticism or warn against nuclear destruction. “The Inner Circle” is a gathering of 11 of these draped female figures illuminated from within by lights placed significantly in their bellies. They sit cross legged in the dark, forming a glowing circle that with prolonged viewing turns naggingly artificial instead of mystic. Even more heavy-handed is “Broken Thread,” a prone glowing female figure collapsed in ashes beside the melted remains of a shopping cart.

Michel’s ability to create ambitious special effects is never an issue here. Her vapor-streaming earthquake fault line, “Orogeny,” which turns mounds of sand into an ever-changing light-and-motion display, would delight a natural science museum. But as art her symbols have to overcome an illustrative bent that saps them of their power while her technical prowess overpowers the visual one liners. Without more to access, the art must rely on ideology for its potency. Unfortunately, to the uninitiated it just looks like another Hollywood attempt at being profound. (Andrea Ross Gallery, 2110 Broadway, to March 17.)