La Cienega Area

There is an edge of retribution brewing in the heartlands outside Peter Dean’s verdant gardens. On the one hand all is calm. Thick, vivid color whips up a lush Van Gogh jungle-garden in Expressionist paint or lets slip a slick tourist-art sunset over a royal blue highway. But where people intrude, so does danger. Madness and violence bubble in the narrow boat of two cartoon-like good ol’ boys in a swamp slicing the legs off frogs. One tilts his head back, exposing his neck to the bloody knife of the other figure, who has a red-spattered bucket.

While Dean wanders the dangerous edges of insanity in a Red Groom’s world going venomous, Janet Tholen’s shallow three-dimensional paintings haunt the deserted temples and sites of ancient civilizations. Each slopes outward from the wall with sharp, single-point perspective, bearing a load of garishly artificial color and carefully scaled materials that give the feeling of miniature stage sets. The theatrical ploys give the temple scenes and deep cracks in the ground lined with sharpened sticks an unreal, manipulative edge that is further emphasized by the way the artist consistently bars entry into the suggested depths. The space initially appears open, but entry is impossible. It is tempting to see this play with the illusion of painterly space as a metaphor for the impenetrability of ancient cultures, but we can’t help wondering at the Universal Studio’s Tour approach that makes the whole thing so Hollywood. (Koplin Gallery, 8225 1/2 Santa Monica Blvd., to Jan 27.)