Good Intentions

A motley, but somehow agreeable, potpourri of art is currently housed at the Finegood Gallery, gathered under the fittingly vague, all-inclusive exhibition title “Reflective Interpretations.” Abstract and figurative work coexist more or less peacefully, as do ideas that lean both toward introspection and the casual charms of craft.

Finding a center that holds these works together can be challenging, but there are individual pleasures along the way. Karallee Fenske’s portraits are freely adorned with abstract and decorative activity in the periphery of her subjects, as varied as a beautiful African woman and Sigmund Freud wielding a cigar (which is just that). His famous image is lost in a cloud of visual debris of questionable relevancy.

Itzhak Tarkay shows serigraphs that celebrate the sensuous languor of Euro-cafe life, and Cheri Wagner’s sculptural figurines split the difference between fine art and Hallmark sentimentality.

Betty Decter’s work consumes a sizable portion of the back gallery. Several pieces combine paint and collage elements on scraps and shards of unframed leather on the wall, in addition to her sculptural columns of painted plexiglass and an elaborately festooned kimono. Still, though, her best works are the humblest, small paintings that aspire to a dreamlike, Chagall-esque lightness of expression.

This show’s strongest work is from the abstract end of the spectrum. Roger Morrison’s modestly scaled, intriguing paintings, flecked with metal powder or gold leaf, are essentially nonrepresentational, improvisations in color and form. But their visual relationships also subtly allude to the order and mystery of sky, land and urban scapes. From another angle, m. Rheuban’s works on paper, in the new “On the Verge” series, explore uncharted visual dimensions in their own way. At best, they come to life by dealing with the tension between rationality and chaos.

However ill-focused the show might be, the forgiving spirit allows us to bask in its good intentions. Chalk it up to the season in which festive and colorful things seem fit to order, a season that softens skeptics’ grimaces and singes critics and other grinches.

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BE THERE

“Reflective Interpretations,” through Feb. 5 at Finegood Art Gallery, at the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Center, 22622 Vanowen St., West Hills. Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; (818) 587-3218.