Intersecting Figuratively

The two artists showing at Soho Gallery in Studio City aim at vaguely similar terrain. Lula Flores and Cindy Suriyani combine figurative and abstract elements and generally maintain a loose, searching attitude toward image-making that may refer to religion and feminist issues.

Apart from those similarities, they are very much on their own distinct tracks.

Suriyani, an Indonesian artist now living in Los Angeles, funnels her energies into small evocative etchings.

Flores, originally from Chile and now living in Sherman Oaks, shows big works, both in spirit and size.

A couple of Flores’ more traditional figurative paintings from the early 1990s illustrate her evolution.

Flores works in mixed media using collage, painting and textural treatments that leave wrinkled or gravelly surfaces. Of late, she has been incorporating bits of Chinese text and imagery after having participated in a cultural exchange program in Beijing.

She also shows a few pieces from her “Act” series, including “Gift of Life,” in which a nude is folded into the composition. Another, titled “God,” is roughly organized around a shrine-like structure with a vaguely Eastern but distinctly female deity centering the picture.

The atmosphere becomes more muted, smaller in scale and intensity in Suriyani’s work. Aspects of folk art simplicity can be deceptive in her pieces, which often use familiar images as springboards to nonrepresentational expression.

We find an attractively ambiguous pictorial sensibility in “Gerlywigg,” “My Sweet Boy” and “Miss Liberty.” Feminism is gently reflected in “The Pink Tutu,” and some carnal echoes can be read into the piece called “Bliss,” its title emblazoned in block letters across a male torso like a signpost.

Underscoring it are rough-yet-tender qualities of drawing and picture-making that do not require neat resolutions in the interpretive process. The art, in short, speaks for itself.

BE THERE

Lula Flores and Cindy Suriyani, through April 30 at Soho Gallery, 12206 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday noon-5 p.m., Sunday noon-4 p.m. (818) 766-5579.