Shelton’s Surrealistic Forms Are Energized by Whimsy

The kinder, gentler side of Surrealism takes shape in Peter Shelton’s hauntingly whimsical sculptures at L.A. Louver Gallery. Simultaneously playful and strange, these three-dimensional figures in bronze, resin and rubber soften Surrealism’s aggressively sexual edge by drawing viewers into situations in which masculinity and femininity dovetail in delightful hybrids defined by slippery, polymorphous sensuality.

Kids love Shelton’s elongated forms. And to stand before any of his animated works, most of which tower 9 to 12 feet overhead, is to feel small indeed.

The first thing you see upon entering the dimly lit gallery is a set of four tubular tendrils hovering just above the floor, like the hoses of an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. What’s most astonishing about these honey- and copper-colored tubes is that they completely suck you in, riveting your attention to the sculpture’s lowest portions.

Only slowly does it dawn on you that there’s more to be seen above. So it’s with a mild sense of trepidation--of having let down your guard or been tricked into taking the bait--that your eyes follow the slithering tubes to a pint-size torso affixed to the wall near the ceiling. Only then does it become clear that the sculpture’s four tubes are the arms and legs of a disproportionate bodysuit, the torso of which is no more than a foot tall.

A similar bottoms-up gaze animates “longjohn.” The four limbs of this free-standing bronze touch down on the floor like the hooves of a horse would. As your eye travels upward, however, the fluid sculpture transmogrifies into a human figure with extremely long limbs--before shifting its shape again to become a ghostly suit of thermal underwear.

Unlike classic Surrealism, which sought to jar viewers out of dull complacency by juxtaposing seemingly unrelated images, Shelton’s user-friendly version presents multiple realities that flow, melt and morph into one another. Based on the shapes of distorted garments, all of his comically sophisticated sculptures are intimate despite their monumental heights.

As a group, they demonstrate that some things are too complex to fit into a single category. Ambidextrous, gravity-defying and of a scale that makes you feel like a kid again, Shelton’s art gives form to experiences that usually fall through the cracks.

* L.A. Louver Gallery, 45 N. Venice Blvd., (310) 822-4955, through Nov. 27. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Fear and Loathing: An undercurrent of danger tugs at the taut surfaces of Dirk Skreber’s oils on canvas. Consisting of just three wall-size works, the 38-year-old German painter’s U.S. solo debut at Blum & Poe Gallery flaunts his capacity to transform banal scenarios into vivid instances of clammy dread. Loaded with palpable tension, these crisp pictures of otherwise unremarkable vehicles and buildings demonstrate that a single painting can make you break out in a cold sweat.

One long horizontal panel isolates a pair of railroad engines on a section of track in a field surrounded by foliage. Neither sufficiently old to trigger nostalgia for yesteryear’s locomotives nor new enough to inspire futuristic fantasies of efficient mass transit, these well-maintained train cars inhabit an oddly inaccessible middle ground. Like a pair of slumbering giants tethered together, they exude the sort of threat you feel in your gut long before your brain finds a name for it.

A second 13-foot-long panel presents a rear view of four one-story buildings that form part of a nondescript compound. Skreber intensifies his picture’s sense of inaccessibility by setting the austere structures behind a thick wooden fence and a reed-choked marsh, which has all the loveliness of a medieval fortress’ moat.

The most unsettling painting is a vertical view of two modest houses, one finished and the other still under construction. With a few explosive yet carefully controlled flicks of his paintbrush--and some drips that are anything but accidental--he suggests that these homes are about to be blown to pieces by some kind of natural (or unnatural) disaster.

Skreber’s unsentimental images combine the documentary quality of photographs with the edgy emotionalism of contemporary painting. Fusing the chilly Realism of his countryman Gerhard Richter with the queasy menace of such American painters as David Deutsch, Llyn Foulkes, Adam Ross and Richard Sedivy, these electrifying works use understatement to ominous effect.

* Blum & Poe Gallery, 2042 Broadway, Santa Monica, (310) 453-8311, through Nov. 24. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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A Harder Edge: Two years ago, Elizabeth Peyton exhibited more than 20 page-size watercolors and drawings that were so tender and intimate they looked as if they might have floated right out of her daydreams and settled on the paper. This year, the New York-based artist’s seven considerably larger paintings on canvas and panel at Regen Projects lack the wispy tenuousness of her earlier works.

While Peyton’s casually fey portraits of male friends, Princes William and Harry, and John F. Kennedy Jr. as a little boy, do not bear signs of struggle, they are clunkier and less enchanting than her works on paper. This development has less to do with a transformation in the 34-year-old artist’s intention to give form to the vulnerable passions of adolescence than with a shift in materials.

Oil paint is the traditional medium for the art of society portraiture, and Peyton’s new works do not travel very well in this conservative company. Too many precedents overshadow her portraits, most notably David Hockney’s pictures of well-heeled friends and acquaintances.

Nevertheless, Peyton has done everything possible to make oil paint behave with the same fluidity, translucence and immediacy of watercolors. She has thinned her paints down to watery washes, which she has applied swiftly, leaving the drips to flow freely.

These once-over, no-going-back passes, however, look weighty and unresolved. In the backgrounds of several interiors, garishly patterned fabrics recall Mary Heilmann’s loosely geometric abstractions, though Peyton’s inelegant renditions lack the verve and insouciance of the originals. In all of Peyton’s new pictures, the awkwardness that once seemed to embody the breathless imperfections of youth now seems to give shape to an adult’s attempt to imitate the heartfelt emotions of an adolescent.

* Regen Projects, 629 N. Almont Drive, (310) 276-5424, through Dec. 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Rhythm of Life: Two sculptures in Larissa Wilson’s likable yet less-than-inspiring exhibition at Newspace Gallery demand hands-on interaction. From each wall-mounted piece dangles a pair of tendrils whose ends are stethoscope-like sensors. When you touch them, your pulse causes the art to vibrate.

If you place the metal receptors over your heart, the sculptures throb, thump, hum and jingle as if they, like Frankenstein’s monster, have come to life. Made of pink rubber, the one that resembles a double mouth with a single set of tonsils quivers like an eardrum with attention deficit disorder. The other one, carved from wood in a shape that recalls both seashells and guitars, is a stringed instrument that functions like a spastic wind chime (the main difference being that your heartbeat, not the wind, makes the tinny music).

Rather than getting a viewer’s pulse to race, however, Wilson’s interactive sculptures simply live off the energy you bring to them. In contrast, her six other sculptures, made of translucent materials stretched over metal armatures, make less literal demands on viewers. Forgoing the superficial appeal of gizmos, they stimulate the imagination in slightly more ambiguous, less predictable ways.

* Newspace Gallery, 5241 Melrose Ave., (323) 469-9353, through Nov. 13. Closed Sundays and Mondays.