Glass Sculptor Bends Neon to His Will

Sculptor and master glass bender Michael Flechtner has brought a rollicking menagerie of colorful, animated 3-D and bas-relief neon works to the Julie Rico Gallery in his show, “Gas, Food & Logic.”

A neon dinosaur head greets you at the door with a friendly roar. Four-foot-long sharks pop out of a toaster. Cows jump over the moon. A cat plays cat and mouse with a computer mouse. The series of flashing gorilla heads could remind one of Mt. Rushmore.

Several other sculptures focus on the glory of flight. In the 28-foot-long “Touch and Go,” 14 neon space shuttles light sequentially, giving the appearance of a shuttle barely landing before it takes off again.

Not all is light and whimsy though. Many of his 24 pieces can be appreciated for their layers of meaning as well as their visual appeal. “Enigma” contemplates the Apollo 13 mission in which three astronauts were killed by an oxygen fire. “Where’d They Go?!” deals with Flechtner’s feelings about the deaths of family members.

He also has included four wearable neon pieces in the show. He designs wearable neon to “show that neon doesn’t have to be plugged into the wall with a big heavy transformer,” he said.

He and his brother spent 2 1/2 hours near the Mirage and Caesar’s Palace hotels in Las Vegas, trading off donning the flashing red sign, “Buddy Can You Spare a Grand?” Flechtner said the most common response they got was, “If I had a spare grand, do you think I’d be here?”

“Michael Flechtner: Gas, Food & Logic” is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays through Jan . 3 at Julie Rico Gallery, 2623 Main St., Santa Monica. Call (310) 399-1177.

MAY DAY: Painter John Nava, known for his depictions of the human figure, brings the drama of the street together with that of the theater in his new series of intense, highly rendered figurative paintings on view at the Koplin Gallery.

The centerpiece of this show of 23 works, most of them oil on canvas, is “2nd of May, 1992, at Los Angeles,” a choreographed street scene involving a policeman who stands over a dead body, and a few bystanders who cannot seem to deal directly with the situation.

“The composition recalls classical precedents--a figure surrounded by empathetic mourners--but if you look more carefully, the figures aren’t empathizing with the victim,” Nava said.

Adjoining this work are several paintings of rehearsing ballet dancers. Based on sketches Nava made and photographs he took while attending rehearsals of the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet company, they depict a choreographer working with male and female members of the company as well as individual ballerinas poised on one foot, stretching and resting.

“What better way of showing the figure than in ballet,” gallery director Marti Koplin said. “There’s so much energy and motion going on in these paintings. And the painting quality is so beautiful this year.”

Nava said that in each of the different images he created, including the nudes that complete the show, he was “using a pictorial form that presents the subject more in a theatrical tableau rather than a straight realist painting.”

“John Nava: Recent Paintings” is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturdays through Jan . 2 at Koplin Gallery, 1438 9th St., Santa Monica. Call (310) 319-9956.