Review: Primordial forces at play in the paintings of Zach Harris

Zach Harris’ visionary paintings set within meticulously crafted frames were standouts in last year’s “Made in L.A.” exhibition at the Hammer Museum, and also something of a revelation.

Harris hadn’t yet had a solo gallery appearance in L.A., though he has shown several times in New York. Now his time has come and the nine recent paintings on view at David Kordansky are again standouts and, in themselves, revelations.

The paintings feel intensely interior, like mindscapes more than landscapes, though jagged mountain-range forms are a recurring motif. “G’s Early Work” is a genesis scene of thrusting, zigzag spires soaked in divine light.

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“Wheel in Picture Light,” too, has a rhythmic sequence of ascending triangles -- what Kandinsky identified as the most spiritual of forms. Primordial forces are at play here, a sense of charged matter and emergent being. The universe as stripped down and amped up.

The lineage Harris belongs to stretches from the early Italian Renaissance through American Modernists like Marsden Hartley and up to such contemporaries as Steve Roden, passing through the timeless, intricate visions of a gaggle of outsider artists along the way.

Harris builds his frames in wood, surrounding the paintings with intricate patterns and sculptural depth: scooped-out rounds inscribed with tiny yin-yangs; carved channels coursing with directional arrows and tiny inked messages.

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There is something of the quest about these works, as earnest as they are lofty. They read as richly conceived illuminations to a text both private and universal.

David Kordansky Gallery, 3143 S. La Cienega Blvd., Unit A, (310) 558-3030, through Aug. 17. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.davidkordanskygallery.com

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