Those empty calories can be so appealing

Will Cotton’s paintings are based on the old-fashioned idea that art should look good, whether or not it’s good for you. At Michael Kohn Gallery, the New York painter’s L.A. solo debut is filled with beautiful landscapes made of ice cream caves, lollipop forests, spumoni streams, peppermint hedges and cotton candy clouds. Many are home to solitary blonds, brunets and redheads, each lovelier than the last, as deliciously sinful as anything in the background and, like supermodels, used to being the center of attention.

The same can be said of great paintings. Throughout history, masterpieces have held nothing back -- and often have gone too far -- in luring viewers into fantastic worlds whose presence resonates in the real one. Although Cotton’s paintings seem to promote the illusion that the ravishing women in them exist for you alone, they are accompanied by so many nods to famous precedents that private fantasies are supplanted by multiparty romps through art history.

A quick glance at the four oil paintings in the first gallery reveals the influence of 1970s Photo-Realism, John Currin’s recycled regionalism, Lisa Yuskavage’s campy Americana and Matthew Barney’s theater of aristocratic absurdity. Francois Boucher’s Rococo confections and Jean Honore Fragonard’s deliriously frilly images from the 18th century are also extravagantly evoked.

In the second gallery, 18 ink, chalk and charcoal drawings recall Jean Ingres’ exotic nudes, Edgar Degas’ awkwardly modest bathers and Wayne Thiebaud’s cafeteria desserts. A hint of Claes Oldenburg’s Pop Surrealism drifts through some of Cotton’s sensuous drawings, especially the five that feature cotton candy -- and use the sugary treat as an implicit form of self-portraiture.

In all of them Cotton masterfully mixes midcentury pinups and soft-core porn with the pointed humor of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” Good ol’ American wholesomeness meets ancien regime decadence.

But the most telling precedent for Cotton’s art is that of Mel Ramos, an often overlooked Pop painter from Northern California who has juxtaposed lithe women and mouthwatering goodies in funny paintings since the mid-1960s. Cotton is pure second-generation Ramos. Despite the stylish elegance and finishing-school impeccability he brings to his pictures, there’s no hiding their middle-class earnestness. It’s their best feature.

Michael Kohn Gallery 8071 Beverly Blvd., (323) 658-8088, through Dec. 21. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.kohngallery.com

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Capturing images of beauty, horror

Painters have always wanted to make powerful images. But power comes in all shapes and sizes. Being dominated is not the same as being moved. Authority may be impressive, seductive or violent -- or some mixture of all three. Shock and awe are aesthetic responses to physical power; both have been conscripted for political purposes.

Marc Handelman makes gigantic paintings that are gorgeous and horrifying. At Marc Selwyn Fine Art, the 30-year-old New Yorker’s L.A. solo debut zeros in on those chilling moments when beauty and morality split like atoms, unleashing ferocious explosions that are more stunning than fireworks and far more deadly. The apocalyptic sublime takes spectacular shape in his creepy images of power being exercised with inhuman ruthlessness.

At 8 feet by 14 feet, the largest -- and scariest -- painting is a red, white and blue star-spangled extravaganza that recalls the dazzling facades of old Vegas casinos and the climax of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Space warps in blazing beams of light because its composition is built on three distinct vanishing points. This creates the impression that time has stopped in a glorious moment of eternal transcendence. “Only One” declares “the rapture is now!” Its patriotic palette and blind conviction intensify the chill.

Handelman based the painting on a billboard advertising Fox News Channel. (A color print depicting the billboard is displayed in a binder at the front desk.) Like Roy Lichtenstein he has streamlined the composition. Like Claes Oldenburg he has eliminated the words. The result is a potent abstraction, which doesn’t let you look away and bowls you over with its pompous drama.

Another enormous canvas is derived from “Our Banner in the Sky,” a small study by Frederic Church. Handelman has simplified the composition, turning a forest landscape into a fiery skyscape against which the tail fins of a supersonic bomber are silhouetted. Other paintings resemble views through night-vision goggles or impossible close-ups of the blinding flashes of explosions.

Despite being rooted in current events, Handelman’s canvases recall the bombast of 1980s painting, which was big, pretentious and full of hot air. If those artists are now thought of as egocentric charlatans, their overblown works pale in comparison to the reality Handelman addresses.

Marc Selwyn Fine Art, 6222 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 101, (323) 933-9911, through Nov. 31. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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The wild side of geometry

Forty years ago, when Sol LeWitt wanted to eliminate sentimentality from his art, he turned to geometry. Precisely ruled lines, grids and cubes did the trick, allowing unexpected idiosyncrasies into systematically abstract works that were free of self-expression and gestural excesses.

At Margo Leavin Gallery, the 77-year-old artist takes geometry on a wild ride. His new series of “Splotches” goes so far beyond common forms that it’s easy to forget that this branch of math measures the lengths, areas and volumes of irregular lines, shapes and spaces, as well those of arcs, triangles and cubes. If it makes sense to talk about geometric abstraction, LeWitt’s new works suggest that it’s time to make room for “calculus abstraction.”

His free-standing fiberglass sculptures resemble giant ice cubes that have melted unevenly, or mountainous landscapes through which invisible rivers have cut meandering chasms and vertiginous ravines. Although each occupies a considerable volume (its outermost dimensions always forming a 68-inch cube), it’s clear that LeWitt’s true love is line -- and that each piece’s three dimensions are simply an excuse to compress (but not crowd) sinuous, gracefully snaking lines into a modest space.

To walk around any of the black, white or black-and-white works is to see its profile change with every millimeter you move. It’s like watching a lively graph of a stock or heart rate go through a cycle of dizzying spikes and harrowing drops, as well as innumerable little ups and downs.

The complexity expands exponentially when you view one of the “Splotches” (numbers 16, 17, 18, 20 or 21) in the round. The fourth dimension, time, multiplies the variety of lines LeWitt masterfully deploys, as does the crisscrossing overlap of sinuous ridges and shadow-casting contours.

Five lovely gouaches, each made of wavy horizontal bands, accentuate the fluid movements of LeWitt’s quietly animated sculptures.

The playful exhibition makes art and math look like soul mates.

Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., (310) 273-0603, through Jan. 7. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Testing spatial sensibilities

Space isn’t what it used to be. There’s a lot less of it on streets and highways, and you don’t need to be a real estate expert to know that population density is on the rise.

In art, similar developments are afoot. Back in the 1960s, a handful of Southern Californians made a name for themselves as Light and Space artists by creating expansive, often huge installations in which seemingly empty spaces triggered perceptual experiences of remarkable subtlety.

Today, spatial sensibilities seem to be filtered through digital technology -- and miniaturized. At Arena 1 Gallery, an eight-artist exhibition suggests that it’s far more common to look at space via screens or images than to move through it physically.

The most ambitious works in “The Shape of Space” strive to do both -- to give flat pictures bodily impact. Kim Schoenstadt draws thick black lines on the wall and floor and then fills in some of these coloring-book shapes with thick layers of paint or pale pastel tints. Fran Siegel cuts abstract shapes out of mirrored Mylar, adds encaustic and mica, and encases the reflective and transparent mixture in shallow Plexiglas boxes that appear to be lighted from within.

Almond Zigmund and Sherin Guirguis treat negative space as if it were as important as positive forms. Zigmund’s monochromatic wall relief turns decoration into an illusion-inducing, mind-bending delight. Guirguis’ 8-foot-long paper cutout, pushpinned to the wall like an insect specimen, flirts with fragility yet packs surprising punch.

Computer technology may save time and shrink space. But there’s no substitute for in-the-flesh experiences of well-designed things.

Arena 1 Gallery, 3026 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 397-7456, through Dec. 24. Closed Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays.