ART REVIEW

Faded: Steve Roden’s paintings and sculptures at Griffin Contemporary Exhibitions fail to make much of a first impression. After time passes and these works are again called to mind, they seem even smaller than their actual dimensions.

Most of Roden’s paintings depict words interspersed with abstract shapes, laid out across fields of smeared paint, polyurethane and wax. Some arrangements resemble incomplete crossword puzzles, and others look like coded abbreviations or the keys of a nonsensical typewriter. Poetic references to French adorn one canvas; the names of trees fill another; a string of adjectives forms a third.

The abstract shapes, painted with synthetic colors, recall comic-book speech bubbles or crude architectural diagrams. Roden’s two sculptures, made of dowels or rectangular chunks of wood, simply translate these painted shapes into three dimensions.

All too often, this young artist’s works seem as if they’re merely filling up space or biding their time. Too tentative to grab your attention directly, and too flat-footed to sneak up on you, they fade from memory before having much impact.

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* Griffin Contemporary Exhibitions, 915-B Electric Ave., Venice, (310) 452-1014, through Dec. 20. Closed Sundays and Mondays.