WEST L.A.

New work by Daniel Oshiro would look right at home in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Brightly colored assemblages involving found objects, sheet metal, wood and loads of slathered on paint, the pieces exude a cheerful sloppiness that unfortunately isn’t exactly what the artist had in mind. A series based on the Kurosawa film “Ran” is intended to be a visual essay on the ravages of war, but, alas, the work is simply too buoyant and bright to make that point. Like Julian Schnabel, Oshiro likes to pile a lot of junk onto the surfaces of his work, and like Frank Stella, he’s partial to geometric shapes that jump off the wall and into the viewer’s face. At this point Oshiro’s work has an engaging zest, but it’s badly in need of focus.

On view in adjoining galleries are wall reliefs and pastel drawings by Pamela Holmes. Holmes’ wall pieces involve roughly a dozen soft, organic shapes that fit together and overlap in the manner of an abstract jigsaw puzzle. Each component in a given piece is like a little painting unto itself and is decorated with patterning in muted colors--amoeba shapes, networks of rippling lines and so forth. Like invocations of Arthurian legend, there’s something dark and heavy about the pieces, and when they misfire they give off a cosmic cheesiness evocative of Stevie Nicks. When they hang together they emit a menacing growl. (Art Space, 10550 Santa Monica Blvd., to July 4).