Why is it that so much of the critical discourse around Jim Isermann’s work is so drearily conservative? Loopy, Op-ish arrangements of pattern on pattern; brightly hued shapes recalling cartoons, cotton candy, and pharmaceuticals; a zanily thorough investigation of fabrics and textures as well as the way putting a hole in something creates an instant frame; a canny renegotiation of the Minimalist object, modern architectural and interior design, craft—Isermann deftly and humorously plays with all these matters and materials. Yet except for Rhonda Lieberman, most writers have celebrated Isermann’s

For their LA debuts, artists Jeff Ono and Christie Frields offered a slow-burn show about fast, out-of-control things. Although the worlds depicted in this double solo exhibition may seem to be fantastical, the work it presented was wrought in everyday materials—paper and plastic—allowing viewers to experience a refreshingly un-virtual reality.

The pairing of the two young LA-based artists seemed particularly apt. Each project is concerned with the notion of basic building blocks, whether of Minimalist sculpture or computer codes, and the possibilities for their colorful mutation. But what makes

Borrowing both title and concept from an unfinished group of paintings by nineteenth-century German artist Philippe Otto Runge, Sharon Ellis displayed a keen and deftly playful understanding of Romantic and religious painting, as well as a variety of other sources from culture high and low, in six mesmerizing alkyd renderings exhibited collectively as “Times of the Day.”

In images that would warm the hearts of transcendentalists and Deadheads alike, Ellis combines a dizzyingly wide range of stylistic references: Romanticism, Symbolism, Impressionism, and Fauvism, as well as Surrealism, Pop art,