Transforming a cheap medium

David Ryan does for medium-density fiberboard what Einstein did for physics: turn its principles inside-out to describe a world far more fascinating than the one that preceded it.

At first it’s tempting to think of the young artist’s abstract paintings in terms of custom paint jobs on hot cars. Both are slick, flashy and impeccable in the perfectionism of their subtly understated color combinations or screamingly high-keyed finishes. But Ryan uses such accessible references only as vehicles to get to the complexities of what he’s really interested in -- the ways line, shape and shadow interact to create perceptual conundrums a viewer can’t get enough of. That has been art’s job for a lot longer than cars have been around.

And painting’s formal components haven’t looked this sexy since the mid-1960s, well before Ryan was born. At the Mark Moore Gallery, his second solo show begins with the most ordinary things: mass-produced sheets of the wood-like material that has replaced plywood as the medium of choice for the construction of inexpensive furniture. Think of medium-density fiberboard -- MDF -- as the woodworking equivalent of processed cheese food. Although both get the job done, you don’t need to be a connoisseur to know that they’re nothing like the real thing -- a sturdy plank of oak or a gooey wedge of brie.

Ryan transforms MDF into paintings that look as if they’re as light as clouds, as playful as cartoons and as free-floating as dreams. He does it by using digitally driven lasers to cut big 1/2-inch-thick sheets into loosely circular shapes that are gorgeously spray-painted. Some of these shapes lock together, like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Others leave gaps between their deftly doodled borders.

Together they form loopy planes made up of irregularly concentric rings, which recall those of Saturn, trees that have undergone genetic mutations or a bird’s-eye view of fried eggs sizzling in a pan. Ryan then repeats the process, stacking two or three additional layers of similarly worked sections atop the first one.

Sometimes, only tiny slices of underlying layers can be glimpsed at the outmost edges. At others, the frontal panels part just enough to give viewers a peek of what lies beneath. It’s a lot like catching a glimpse of skin between two articles of clothing meant to overlap -- all the more risque for being unexpected.

As a painter, Ryan is no ingenue. To think seriously about his fun-loving works is to see their links to an undervalued tradition of Los Angeles abstraction. There’s a touch of Arthur Dove’s late works in Ryan’s crisp paintings, but their heart and soul belongs to California.

Without getting stuck in the past, they pay homage to John McLaughlin’s early works, draw knowingly on Karl Benjamin’s kinky tertiary colors and learn a thing or two from Tony De Lap’s gracefully asymmetrical hybrids. More recent precedents include Monique Prieto, Philip Argent, Bart Exposito and Stephen Heer. But no list of artists with similar commitments explains the magic at work in Ryan’s refreshingly sophisticated paintings.

Mark Moore Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 453-3031, through July 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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The growth of an abstract artist

“Helen Lundeberg and the Illusory Landscape: Five Decades of Painting” brings some long overdue attention to a painter whose works gracefully moved from European Surrealism to Southern California Abstraction without getting bogged down in New York Expressionism. At Louis Stern Fine Arts, 21 variously scaled canvases provide a thumbnail sketch of a career whose influence continues to grow, especially among young painters.

Two-thirds of the oils and acrylics were made between 1960 and 1970. The earliest show Lundeberg (1908-1999) getting comfortable with Abstraction -- balancing wedges, slices and chunks of solid, subdued colors, all with straight edges.

These taut compositions in muted organic tones evoke a landscape of wide-open spaces, without depicting it. Many seem to be nighttime views of the desert or dreamy memories of such experiences. Abrupt and unsentimental, they’re remarkably serene.

Some, however, are a bit stiff -- so controlled and deliberate that they feel boxed-in and static. All that changes in the show’s centerpiece, a 5-by-17-foot triptych from 1963 that’s as refreshing as an ocean breeze.

Made of sensuous curves and sharp, knifing lines, the blue, green and white painting includes translucent layers. These sections, where two colors overlap to form a third, bring more space into the image, which Lundeberg deftly plays off against its sweeping lateral movements and bold Pop colors.

The design principles that lie behind her adamantly graphic abstraction are the same as those that make Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall appear to be a joyous cluster of huge stainless steel sails billowing in the wind. Both turn away from the privacy of inner sentiments for the big ambitions of public life.

The rest of Lundeberg’s paintings refine and elaborate upon “Triptych’s” jaunty optimism. Long before Santa Fe made it impossible for serious artists to use pastel colors, Lundeberg made these tints sing, laying peachy pinks next to mint greens in proportions that still look good. They have a lot to say about today.

Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 276-0147, through Aug. 28. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Embodying self-discipline

Like fine wine, Romare Bearden’s art gets better with age. Part of that’s due to the proliferation of entry-level stuff by inexperienced youngsters. But the main reason Bearden’s images have such staying power is that they pack so much verve and intelligence -- not to mention wit, wisdom and astutely observed experience -- into every square inch of their polyglot surfaces.

At the Alitash Kebede Gallery, a satisfying exhibition pairs 11 intimately scaled collages and watercolors Bearden (1911-88) made in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s with five slightly larger watercolors Herbert Gentry (1919-2003) painted between 1987 and 1991. The collages steal the show.

The four interiors are masterpieces. Each of Bearden’s mix-and-match images takes its pleasures where it can get them, without forgetting the long hours of suffering that lie behind hard-won happiness. Too level-headed an artist to presume that God lives in the details of his exquisitely detailed pictures of Africans and African Americans, Bearden simply demonstrates that redemption resides in the littlest of things -- good company, a homemade quilt, a cold drink, a graceful silhouette glimpsed through a window or an eloquently composed collage.

Toil is a constant, both in terms of what the images depict (cotton fields, millworkers, herdsmen and homemakers) and how they do so (via damaged scraps of paper and fabric, many of which have been repainted). As a recycler of wastebasket detritus, Bearden is an American original.

His watercolors, however, lack the resilience and vitality of his cut-and-paste pictures. Gentry’s paintings fall short for the same reason. Depicting generic faces amid color-coordinated squiggles, they accentuate prettiness at the expense of gritty specificity.

In contrast, Bearden’s collages embody so much patience and self-discipline that they seem to belong to an age (or an attitude) far removed from today’s infatuation with instantaneous gratification.

Alitash Kebede Gallery, 170 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 549-0003, through July 17. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Collision of East and West values

Before Quentin Tarantino and Sofia Coppola began making movies that used Japanese culture as a backdrop for the very different adventures of Americans cut off from their cohorts, a spate of artists was mining the territory where East and West meet. And before Takashi Murakami, Gajin Fujita and Sush Machida Gaikotsu began exhibiting their wide-ranging hybrids, Masami Teraoka was painting, drawing and printing loaded pictures of the collision between Japanese traditions and American consumerism.

At Sarah Lee Artworks & Projects, a smartly focused exhibition of 17 prints, drawings and watercolors Teraoka made between 1973 and 1985 provides a compelling back story to the art world’s growing fascination with that cultural exchange. In formal terms, Teraoka’s images of lascivious geisha and befuddled noblemen are the most refined.

Composed of nothing but lithe, fluid lines, these black-and-white screen-prints highlight his mastery of the medium. His more complex prints, which include up to 65 colors, are unparalleled in their gorgeously orchestrated subtlety.

In terms of content, Teraoka’s depictions of Japanese characters getting carried away by the trappings of Western consumerism are point-blank critiques of corporate globalism. Blame is not aimed at only one side of the Pacific.

Teraoka’s disgust with mass marketing’s chokehold is palpable, even when it’s suffused with sarcastic humor. In contrast, the next generation of artists to address the issue does so more circumspectly and with less hands-on virtuosity. Visit Murakami’s bittersweet celebration of consumerism’s highs and lows at the Blum & Poe Gallery (through June 26) and Gaikotsu’s hand-painted extravaganza at Western Project (through June 19) to see the various ways Pop culture has complicated -- and simplified -- the work artists do.

Sarah Lee Artworks & Projects, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 829-4938, through June 12. Closed Sundays and Mondays.