LA CIENEGA AREA

Carroll Dunham’s latest paintings explode upon the unsuspecting viewer like a precocious fusion of Cy Twombly and Walt Disney. As in the past, Dunham renders his combination of biomorphic organisms, scribbled calligraphies, kinetic whorls and outlined cartoony gestures on various wood veneers, so that random knot holes and natural grains act as both creative catalyst and formal “cement” for an essentially intuitive process.

In many respects, Dunham appears to be mapping out the parameters of painting itself. His focus on materials and process derives from early dabbling in Minimalism, while his juxtaposition of macro-and microscopic imagery suggests an innate interest in compositional coordinates, creating a push-pull between foreground and background, primary and subordinate forms.

Thus in “Source,” the effusion of rings that seem to be emanating from the center of the vertical rectangle could also be seen as blown-up renditions of the wood grain itself, deflecting attention from the surface painterly image toward the organic qualities of the background that “carries” it. We also feel a sense of confinement, as if the work’s energy is being reined in by the arbitrary boundaries of the frame.

This dialectic between superimposed narrative, with its constant shifts in emphasis, and the static autonomy of natural forms, is what gives Dunham’s work its simultaneous sense of playfulness and studied seriousness. Just as he appears on the verge of careening into chaos and self-indulgence, Dunham finds a line or center of gravity that gives us a signpost for reading and exploring further, so that we become aware of painting’s traditional language at the very point when it seems most irrelevant. (Daniel Weinberg Gallery, 619 N. Almont Drive, to May 16.)