ART REVIEW : Important Themes Are Buried Under Superficial Images : Paintings: Derek Boshier’s work is said to reflect social concerns and, indeed, it does little more than regurgitate troubling notions.

Derek Boshier shuffles potent symbols in his paintings, but he rarely deals himself a winning hand.

In 2 dozen small tempera paintings and large canvases now on view at the Mandeville Gallery at UC San Diego, Boshier lays out images of war, violence, consumerism and police abuse. But the British-born artist, who now lives and teaches in Houston, fails to frame these volatile themes in equally volatile or at least incisive contexts.

Boshier reduces the tension implicit in these issues rather than amplifying it. He panders to the presumed weight of such symbols as the American flag, a silhouetted gun and yellow ribbons rather than pondering their deeper, ethical implications.

Boshier has been allied with Pop art, and his work also feels resonant with postmodern trends in art. Both movements swallow huge amounts of popular culture and media imagery only to spit it back again, undigested. They leave most of the chewing to the viewer. The effect can be jarring--as it is with John Baldessari, for instance--or it can appear facile, as is the case with Boshier.

His messages could not be more pungent: The private possession of guns breeds violence; wars are often politically needless but economically beneficial; violence is woven into the fabric of American life; those in power exploit their positions at the expense of public security.

But his images are far less compelling. “We’re Bullish on the War” consists merely of silhouetted soldiers flanked by large red dollar signs. “You Are Seven Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Gun If You Own a Gun” layers a solid red gun over a gray American flag, its stripes slightly faceted to suggest flag-draped coffins. “This Badge Means You Care” uses two blue police badges to frame a now-infamous scene from the videotaped police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.

Though Boshier’s titles often help lend his images some critical bulk, more often than not the paintings feel flat, thin, lacking in insight and intellectual dimension. Boshier’s work is said to reflect social concerns and, indeed, it does little more than regurgitate troubling notions.

When Boshier does offer new guises through which to consider difficult issues, his works come across as mannered and indulgent. He often layers black and white, photographically derived imagery with brightly painted red, blue, yellow and green geometric shapes, as if trying to stimulate a dialogue between media reality and the realm of abstract art. The languages and vocabularies of each remain distinct, however, and Boshier rejects the role of translator, hoping instead, perhaps, to contrive a bit of tension from the incongruous alliance.

“Order” features a brushy monochrome pattern that gradually reads as a solid crowd of people. Atop this pattern, Boshier has assembled a sprightly parade of shapes that, only in a very vague way, echoes the notion of order and discipline suggested by the work’s title and underlying layer of paint.

In “K-is for Killers,” he drops a giant red K in the type style instantly recognizable as the Kellogg’s cereal logo over a monochrome montage of hunters proudly posing with their catch. The link between consumer culture, symbolized by the letter K, and the offensive acts of the hunters is tenuous, at best.

Only in a few works do Boshier’s quirky pairings really deliver that tension so implicit in the subjects themselves. “History--Some Squares” stands out as the most hauntingly ambiguous painting in the show. Against a large black background, Boshier has painted an image--seemingly based on a news photograph--of people dispersing from what appears to be a violent melee or demonstration. Bodies lie like black smudges on the public square while others flee in all directions.

The image seems tabbed in place by red triangular shapes that suggest photo mounting corners like those used in a scrapbook. Some of the corners here, however, float independently of the image itself. A human shape formed of dabs of colored paint stands in the center of the canvas. Together with those floating corners, it begins to evoke the dissolution of tangible form in modern painting, which echoes the breakdown of social order captured in the painted photograph.

At last, Boshier’s split concerns begin to overlap, and the meeting sparks real questions about content and form, not just incredulity over Boshier’s simplification of complex themes.