ART REVIEWS

The Melody Lingers: Mariella Simoni’s six compact paintings on beveled wood panels combine the solidity of cement building blocks with the compositional structures of flags from countries we seem to recognize, but cannot exactly identify. They insist upon the physical properties of their materials, yet evoke sign-systems that elude comprehension. The Italian-born artist’s abstractions at Shoshana Wayne Gallery are both diminutive and bold, compressed and expansive, formally reductive and wildly excessive.

Simoni’s paintings thrive on the tension she creates by defying the order implied by their four framing edges. Their fields of oddly unnatural colors seldom align horizontally or vertically. Instead, they angle off at sharp slants and arbitrary diagonals.

Across these off-balanced geometries, Simoni often builds up thick swathes of paint that look as if they were applied with a brush twice the size of the paintings themselves. The speed suggested by these slowly built-up, artificial gestures is held in check by the seductive details of the translucent surfaces they partially obscure.

Simoni’s little paintings stick in your mind like a melody your memory keeps replaying despite your desire to forget it. Her single large painting, made up of four horizontal bars held in place by a thick underline of rusty pigment, reinforces the metaphor of music. Like an empty sheet waiting for a score, it quietly contrasts with the jam-packed vitality of her smaller works.

* Shoshana Wayne Gallery, 1454 Fifth St., Santa Monica, (310) 451-3733, through Nov. 30 . Closed Sundays and Mondays.