A Figurative Approach

Figures, either nude or dripping with a kind of latent, inchoate sexuality, fill the two-person show at the Orlando Gallery in Sherman Oaks. But calling this erotic art doesn’t quite fly. Although their means and messages are radically different, artists Tracy Vera, a mannered realist, and Brian Mark, who treats his figures with decorative zeal, both approach the figure as emblems and props as much as subjects of genuine, fleshy desire.

Vera creates fashionably brooding scenes, often close-up views of couples caught in close, dimly lighted quarters. They often stare placidly out from paintings, like the languid models in hipper clothing ads, trying hard to effect casual disregard, and always appearing as if viewed just before or after acts of love and lust. A kind of neo-noir-ish atmosphere mixes with the psychological ambiguity of the imagery to create narratives without closure.

We end up as voyeurs, projecting our own character judgments on the figures in the paintings. Why, we wonder, is the woman lurking in the shadowy space behind the door as a man enters the room, in “Hiding”? Is there a pleasant game of “guess who” in store, or some ambush scenario?

And what is the interpersonal dynamic in “Sleeper,” where a woman with a killing glare sits in a chair reading a book, while a sunglasses-clad man crouches beside her in apparent intimidation? What, if any, part of the story are we not privy to? The questions are part of the shtick in Vera’s paintings, and she provokes them naturally enough, and lets her paint do the talking, to avoid mere caginess.

In other paintings, the subject appears to be self-love. The smug dandy in “Doughie Gray” wallows in self-satisfaction as he sits in a comfy chair patting the head of a woman sitting on the ground beside him as he would a dog’s. The frank frontal nudity of the man in “Reflect” is less imposing than the noxious aura of self-regard as he cradles a mirror on his bed, reminding us of the creepy narcissism of Jason Patric’s character in Neil Labute’s recent film “Your Friends and Neighbors.”

As in that film, and in a way reminiscent of other obliquely eros-related painters such as Eric Fischl, Vera’s paintings bask in an air of chic decadence verging on despair. But the scent of danger is the centerpiece.

No such hard-edged provocation or moody palette greets us in the work of Mark, whose light-headed mixed-media pieces show nudes awash in post-Peter Max psychedelia. Nude figures are prominently situated in the compositions, but they tend to be aswirl in vibrantly colored background debris.

Skin tones, as such, are subject to wild reinvention, its splashy effects evoking memories of tie-dye and light shows. In “For Forty Years and Forty Nights” (seen last spring at the Orlando’s 40th anniversary celebration exhibition), a sleeping nude is bathed in blue-green, with an accompanying pattern of skyscrapers and nude poses, as if we’re glimpsing the stuff of her dreams.

A similar effect is encountered in “Duck Farm Sainthood,” in which a young woman sits on a bed reading, a farm scene visible outside her window. A star-shaped halo surrounds her head, suggesting a kind of mild-mannered martyr, dreaming big dreams in a small town. And with “Right Now She Is Napping Above Santa Monica Bay, 1986,” the snoozing subject is embellished with rainbow sherbet color effects, the mundane beauty of the Santa Monica beach beyond her.

Mark’s art-pretty pictures with melancholy subplots involve layers of meaning, as does Vera’s art. But, while she investigates cryptic interior scenes and piques our curiosity about human relations, his layers are easy on the eye, and a pleasant tonic to the mind. Each to his or her own.

BE THERE

Tracy Vera and Brian Mark, through Oct. 30 at the Orlando Gallery, 14553 Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks. Gallery hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday; (818) 789-6012.