Lari Pittman at Regen Projects - Los Angeles - art exhibition, California

The oddball, mayhem-filled imagery of Lari Pittman's intricate new paintings captures the zeitgeist. Reflecting today's wartime atmosphere of paranoia, malaise and frustrated entitlement, six large works present abstracted scenes of combat that feature medieval-looking warriors in armor wielding scimitars and battle-axes. The depicted maneuvers are not, however, set in Middle Earth but are rooted in a West Coast landscape of forests and mountains. A predominantly muted palette of brown, green, khaki, gold and burnt orange subdues the action, suggesting that Pittman is investigating a more internal form of violence.

With their complex draftsmanship and visible brushwork, these dazzling paintings (all untitled, 2003) evidence the artist's hand more than did those shown previously at Barbara Gladstone in New York (2002) and Galerie Philomene Magers in Munich (2003). Perhaps signaling an increased personal commitment to his subject matter, the style of the new paintings harks back to the mid-1980s works that dealt with Pittman's own brush with mortality (his near death from a burglar's gunshot).

In almost all the paintings on view, some kind of duel lurks within the dense compositions. In one painting, set in a field of skeletal trees, a weird, oversize cavalier--really a cobbled-together, fluted candlestick with an ornamented cap--stabs his gigantic, mechanical-seeming foe in the solar plexus with a saber. Several of the other bejeweled warrior figures appear to be conglomerates of chimney ducts and airplane parts.

Gratuitous violence reigns. One painting depicts an ax-wielding totem pole that is about to strike at a bizarre birdbath in the shape of Noah's Ark. Elsewhere, two asymmetrical windmills attack each other, one thrusting an impressive sword sprouting an axhead. The most striking work, and the show's single explosion of bright color, features a face-off between a gnarly pink root and a feathery, bright orange cartoonish flame. An armchair between them is empty, its upholstery ripped open by the claw of a gardening tool. Above the chair, a disconnected IV drip further indicates a dire state of emergency. As in many of Pittman's works, depicted webs of string and wire act as connective tissue holding together the composition's many parts.

Arguably, the show's standout is a painting with a single, centrally placed warrior who brandishes a sword in one hand, an ax in the other. Wearing an ornamental helmet, armored collar and skirt, the figure seems to be defending a huge Faberge egg whose decorated shell is labeled "3061," the street number of Pittman's home/studio. The artist-surrogate here makes his stand, weapons poised to defend heart and hearth, relying on the antiquated powers of painting to give him the strength to pull it off.

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