Raw Talents

In the world of young, hip art, awkwardness has become the belle of the ball. And no wonder. It offers so many possibilities, on both emotional and visual levels. And it suits a generation attracted to “low-fi” materials and nerdy antiheroes.

“Square Pegs,” curated by Samara Caughey and Alexis Weidig for Ron Breeden Gallery in Orange, is a breezy little group show of work by artists from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle with some perversely lovable pieces.

There’s humor here, and a kind of ragged pathos. Memories are guardedly wistful, and there’s a make-do spirit that manages to be both clumsy and mocking.

Best of all are Rebecca Riess’ cardboard boxes covered in various textures and sizes of paper and colored tape. These pieces take their cues from a dizzying medley of sources: architectural design, car-detailing pinstripes, the dashed lines on treasure maps, ‘60s fabric patterns, advertising graphics.

In “Woodland Hills,” a box covered in white tape with a red vertical stripe and propped up in a tilted position becomes a contemporary suburban home. Angled nearby, two small varicolored boxes could be landscape elements or cars. The repeated use of the same materials suggests that all these suburban possessions are somehow cut from the same cloth.

Suppressed bursts of laughter and mumbles (“uh-huh . . . and, uh, like”) are the entire contents of Ken Fandell’s taped phone conversation, “I Love You . . .” The “script” for this terminally halting encounter consists mainly of copious inked-out portions--presumably the mushy stuff that’s even more awkward to tell the world about than it is to tell your girlfriend.

Caroline Clerc’s minuscule drawings, “Thirty-four Pepitos,” present a tiny big-eared creature that serves as a deadpan bystander for various ridiculous events, labeled with tiny hand-lettered streamers. The funniest is “Death Gets a Pez,” featuring the Grim Reaper, his little shrouded head cocked in amazement as he examines the candy dispenser.

Donald Morgan’s amusingly forlorn “Found Surfboards” also shares the wincing, long-suffering quality of much of this work. The boards are just two awkwardly band-sawed long ovals of distressed plywood, painted pale blue and white, and propped up in a corner. Spindly and useless though they are as sports equipment, they evoke the idea of surfing as a remembered pleasure.

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Gilbert Neri’s technique has promise: He heats small objects--toys, nails, wires--and registers their shapes on long, skinny sheets of thermal fax paper, touching up their variously sharp and blurry grayness with watercolor. Tacked on the wall, the paper extends casually onto the floor.

While Neri’s obvious symbols (nails, toy guns) fall flat, he is onto something better with “Pilgrimage.” A small avalanche of playthings (a tiny ballerina, a covered wagon, kewpie dolls, pigs) tumble helplessly in the void, as if someone just pushed the eject button on his childhood memories.

Karin Gulbran’s untitled paintings on large sheets of paper are deliberately homely self-portraits that operate as the evil twins of those women’s magazine ads that used to show perky models in various fashion “moods.”

Whether she appears in a ridiculously puffy combo of bouffant petticoats hitched up to make a dress or in bikini underpants, athletic shoes and a hooded sweatshirt that entirely covers her face, you get the idea that Gulbran’s painted alter ego is vamping for an audience of one.

Co-curator Weidig included herself in the show, a tactic that generally smacks of special pleading. Oddly enough, her work--silhouettes of cars in wallpaper patterns on brightly colored backgrounds of Avery label shapes--don’t seem at home with the squirrelly worlds of the other young artists she has chosen.

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* “Square Pegs” continues through March 21 at the Ron Breeden Gallery, 675-F N. Eckhoff, Orange. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. (714) 937-5934.