ART REVIEW : ‘Tornado’: A Feast for the Eyes

For most, California’s earthquakes represent the ultimate in scary natural disaster. Not Joe Goode. He’s lived hereabouts for decades, but he remembers the diabolical tornadoes of his native Oklahoma. He remembers the days when a twister could flatten a town faster than you could say “dust bowl.” He’s been painting them the last couple of years and now the stunning results are on view at the County Museum of Art and the James Corcoran Gallery.

There’s a certain dark humor in the way the paintings came about. Goode ran across a book in an Oklahoma airport newsstand called “Those Terrible Twisters.” It reminded him of the poltergeist perversity of these high-velocity air-borne dervishes. They have been known to pluck chickens or turn tables around, leaving the setting undisturbed.

But Goode didn’t paint their quirky aspects. The work on view at LACMA is “Laboratory: Joe Goode, Tornado Triptych.” Goode painted the huge (39-by-14.5-foot) work on site. That’s something of a phenomenon in itself since the piece is done in the ancient manner of Chinese sumi ink painting, which allows little reworking and no second chances. Influence from Oriental art is new on Goode’s oeuvre .

The three-panel composition shows a twister approaching, striking with dark force and receding. As has become usual with Goode’s work, this one sits on the precise border between representation and abstraction, which lends it a wonderful air of poetic distillation. It is as elegant and forceful as vintage Robert Motherwell, with considerably greater energy and spontaneity.

Taking in a dozen works at the Corcoran Gallery enriches the experience. About half are in the sumi manner and all are named after Oklahoma towns. Goode’s tornadoes don’t feel derivative but they do have common ground with other L.A. artists who emerged in the ‘60s. All have lurking disaster on the brain--millennial jitters.

Goode’s painted tornadoes prove again that grim subjects can make great art. “McDonald” is a somber orchestration of siennas and umbers under-textured with Pollockesque splashes as sonorous as a cello.

The brooding “Habersam” exudes a ghoulish green glow, while the next canvas seems to toss debris, and the one after that shows a spectral white wedge pausing before it visits havoc on the land.

In other moods Goode has evoked the spirit of Giorgio Morandi. There’s a slightly visionary quality to his art. This time he makes us think of Americans Albert Pinkham Ryder and Ralph Blakelock and their awed admiration for elemental force.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., through Aug. 23, (213) 857-6000. Closed Mondays .

James Corcoran Gallery, 1327, 5th St., Santa Monica, through July 11, (310) 451-0950. Closed Mondays .