Wilshire Center

Barry Scharf’s lighthearted paintings and painted wood and paper constructions are disarmingly decorative, yet serious, investigations of painting. The colors are brightly appealing and the detached relief brushwork turned pattern is a clever design element; sort of a three-dimensional parody of a Mark Tobey network of lines. But the strong designer chic that emanates from the fan-folded paper constructions like “Blue Sticks” and “3 Purple Fans” masks much of work’s play with movement, space and mark behind an empty headed kind of designer trendiness. This work is smart but seems to prefer looking good.

Pieces like “Tag Your It” and “Pandora’s Box” seem to say that Scharf is toying with us, making paintings that deconstruct into their elements while referencing other painters. In these paintings he taunts us with the tight structural control of Jasper Johns’ brushwork, popped free from the painted surface, and removes the target to an ambiguous atmosphere of dotted line directions. “Rooftops” sees through Pop art’s graphic lettering to the structuring of space while “Shots Were Fired” takes pot shots at a lavender Jim Dine heart.

The number of points Scharf wants to make about painting and painters means that the paintings go a number of ways at once. Occasionally, as in the wiped out architecture of “City By Day” we get lost as to what the artist is trying to suggest besides the gee whiz effects of trompe l’oeil floating marks with painted shadows. This is a chancy line of inquiry where the visual play on surface and illusionism can take over so that trickery overwhelms content. (Ivey Gallery, 154 N. La Brea Ave., to Dec. 15.)