Arresting Moments in Time Reveal a Harsh Reality

Like dreams, Patty Wickman’s figurative paintings at Dan Bernier Gallery drift back and forth across the border of believability. In front of these often large oils on canvas it’s hard to believe what you see, but it’s even more difficult to dismiss it as mere fiction.

Wickman’s realism, by captivating your imagination, reveals that subjective truths pack more punch than objective facts.

“A Thief in the Night” is the most stoic depiction of helplessness and violation I’ve seen in a recent painting. Inside an artist’s loft, a well-dressed man and woman stand perfectly still, with their hands folded behind their backs. At their feet is a blanket on which their valuables have been arranged in a tidy grid. In the background, a masked burglar casually perches in an open window.

Based on an actual experience, Wickman’s image presents the facts of an interrupted robbery compressed with considerable artistic license into a highly dramatic scenario. Defying time, the painting fuses the past and the future into a charged moment.

The unseen thief is brought back to the loft, while the crime’s emotional aftermath is given shape by the victim’s passive stances. To see this picture is to feel time grind to a halt with the finality of fate.

Wickman’s other works likewise depict unlikely scenarios of undeniable power. In one, a pair of stocky sisters wrestle in what appears to be a giant crystal wineglass.

In another, dozens of toys collect on the eaves of a suburban home’s roof, as if a rain of playthings has just fallen. By softening the shock of Surrealism, Wickman’s art gives vivid and gentle form to reality’s quiet weirdness.

* Dan Bernier Gallery, 3026 1/2 Nebraska Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 264-4882, through June 29. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Gravity’s Grip: George Geyer’s glass, steel and wood sculptures offer simple demonstrations of basic scientific principles. At Ruth Bachofner Gallery, a series of well-designed devices show that what appears to be empty space is actually a nearly invisible force field, through which various types of energy move.

The materiality of light is emphasized by seven pieces that rest on pedestals. They are made of circular, triangular and rectangular sheets of thick blue-green glass held together by a variety of clamps.

The two remaining pieces use magnets to suspend thin wires in taut lines. They illustrate the constant pull of gravity and the sculpture’s intermittent struggle to overcome it.

Although Geyer’s handsomely fabricated pieces achieve everything they set out to do, they don’t hold one’s attention very long. If they risked losing some of the tightfisted control that holds them in a suffocating grip, they might begin to be interesting as works of art; instead they resemble fancy gadgets found in upscale gift stores for people who seem to have everything.

* Ruth Bachofner Gallery, 2046 Broadway, Santa Monica, (310) 829-3300, through July 13. Closed Sundays and Mondays.