A dark vision of sunny Southern California

By Mindy Farabee

March 27, 2008 12 AM PT

TABLOID images. Murderous throngs. Devilish B-movie characters. In three new gallery shows across town -- “Are You Going With Me?” at Ambrogi/Castanier, “Hollywood Apocalypse” at Black Maria and “The Devil Lives in Long Beach” at Two Bits -- L.A. once again takes stock of itself and comes up noir.

“It’s an exaggerated way of describing what’s going on all around us,” says Black Maria owner Zara Zeitountsian. In the wake of a writer’s strike, mortgage drama and massive wildfires, L.A.’s mood, she says, has grown more moody as of late. That only made the timing more apropos for another of Black Maria’s intermittent and, ahem, uncomplimentary Hollywood-centered affairs. Assembled by guest curator Ray Zone, this show has as its central conceit representations of “The Burning of Los Angeles,” a fictional painting of an infamous mob described in Nathanael West’s novel “The Day of the Locust.” Various artists contributed works widely varying in content and tone.

At Edward Walton Wilcox’s show “Are You Going With Me?” however, the theme is reproachful gaze. Wilcox uses glazes, paint removers and a sepia palette to construct glossy memento moris such as substance-abusing young blonds and Neutras flambes. Playing off the lurid Gothic Romantic style, Wilcox says his works, like the movement he references, rebuke and seduce. Gothic Romanticism’s “dual function is something I discovered while working on the paintings,” he says. “It was a moral critique, but could also be construed as pandering to the very audience it was critiquing. It makes you ask, is this turning me on or off?”

In Sara Ray’s first solo show -- closing Sunday at Two Bits Gallery -- the artist took inspiration from “The Wild One”-era Long Beach, paying homage to what she calls the underbelly lingering beneath fancy new lofts. For example, her painting “Jungle Bar” features a Lili St. Cyr-esque beauty with preternaturally blond hair, flanked by man-feline escorts, around whom her cigarette smoke curls into a diaphanous bear trap.

Ray, a B-movie aficionado, likes to invoke a smirking noir. “It’s not supposed to scare anyone from going over the other side of the tracks,” Ray says. “In Long Beach you can get into or stay out of any trouble you want.”

-- Mindy.Farabee@latimes.com

HOLLYWOOD APOCALYPSE

WHERE: Black Maria Gallery, 3137 Glendale Blvd., Atwater Village

WHEN: 7-10:30 p.m. Sat.; ends April 19

PRICE: Free

INFO: (323) 660-9393; blackmariagallery.com

ARE YOU GOING WITH ME?

WHERE: Ambrogi/Castanier Gallery, 300 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood

WHEN: Ends Sat.

PRICE: Free

INFO: (310) 652-5511; am brogicastaniergallery.com

THE DEVIL LIVES IN LONG BEACH