Santa Monica

Shaping Up: New York artist Heide Fasnacht makes brightly painted wood sculptures that usually rest on the floor and allude in a general way to engine parts, buoys and satellites. Staggered sheets of wood create bulging globe and beehive forms with patterned openings and blade-like protrusions. Elephantine or tiny, most pieces project the pert insouciance of clever and unusual creations. “Siren” twists and shouts in orange fluorescent paint; “Constellation” features a red sphere balancing on a black rectangle tilted on a green sphere.

But not enough is going on here to make the work stand out from the crowd of younger artists fashioning meaningfully eccentric, improbable shapes. Once you’ve seen a few pieces, they begin to seem superficial and formulaic rather than probing and inventive. Mixed-media drawings on paper confirm this disconcerting feeling. She noodles around with intersecting circular and spherical shapes, but she doesn’t do anything interesting with them.

You might check out Alan Rath’s oddball, captivating “Clamp-On Breather” and “Portable Breather” in the rear gallery, however. Better known for video work, Rath’s new contraptions--made with electronics parts and stereo speakers--send out thumping, sucking pulses at speeds varying from heart palpitation level to a barely comatose flutter. (Dorothy Goldeen Gallery, 1547 9th St., to March 31.)