A Different Sphere

Fred Wolf has made a name for himself in the world of animation as the force behind “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “The New Adventures of Speed Racer” and many other titles familiar to Saturday morning TV habitues.

Often artists who make their living in one corner of the arts-and-entertainment scene think and work in another corner.

In Wolf’s case, painting is what’s done on the side.

There’s a poetic justice in finding a makeshift “gallery” of Wolf’s paintings threading through the hallways of Fred Wolf Films at the building in Burbank where he produces animation.

His paintings are often flecked with surreal whimsy, even when touching on Edward Hopper-esque desolation in “Repose” and “Pear in Chair.”

A sense of winking wit and caricature is at work in various degrees and guises. “The Senator” and “Jeeves” are presented in jowly pomposity. Circus-like grotesqueries, a natural element for Wolf, are found in the corpulent clown with a balloon-shaped bald head in “Face Off” and the small face set into a huge, puffy, yellow orb in “Harlequin.”

Wolf has fun with heads, sometimes presenting them as curious yellow spheres with or without faces.

At times, they look like models for the “Have a Nice Day!” images on their day off, slouching in an easy chair or slumping into a bar stool at not-so-happy hour.

Wolf is a skilled enough painter, although his long reliance on the flatness of cartoon forms may be something he’s still learning to let go.

But he lets his artistic mind wander in telling ways.

Inevitably, we keep searching for links between the painter and the cartoon maker.

In “Short Fall,” bodies in underwear tumble through the sky, and they seem none too perturbed about the situation.

It’s a dreamlike scenario, or maybe a cartoon, where calamities and falling 16-ton anvils never leave lasting harm.

BE THERE

“Mostly Yellow,” through Nov. 19 at Fred Wolf Films, 4222 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank. Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (818) 846-0611.