An artist’s inspired growth

Many artists shift toward a sort of minimalism as they mature, their compositions shedding clutter as their confidence in form and technique develops. It says something about the boisterous nature of Roy Dowell’s sensibility that his career, outlined in a 24-year survey at Margo Leavin Gallery, has followed more or less the opposite trajectory. Far from detracting from the work, this proves to be exhilarating.

Dowell’s transition from the affable, quirky but relatively forgettable paintings he made in the early 1980s to the dense, sharp, fantastically dynamic collage works that carried him through the 1990s comes as an emphatic reminder that less is not always more. The gathering and marshaling of momentum can be a form of refinement in itself.

The early paintings have their moments, to be sure -- in the tension of certain edges, for instance, or the buoyancy of some of the shapes. On the whole, however, they cover familiar territory, putting a blithe 1980s-era spin on a traditional vocabulary of form familiar from Cubism and Constructivism.

Part of the problem is that Dowell is simply not a brilliant painter. As lively as his forms may be in a pictorial sense, his technique hasn’t the delicacy or nuance to set them off -- to sharpen contrasts in texture, for instance, carve out a more resonant illusion of depth or enliven the surface of the canvas -- and thus to move them past the level of the merely enthusiastic.

For this reason the introduction of collage comes as a revelation. One senses Dowell moving toward the shift in the denser paintings of the late 1980s -- most notably in a large and very appealing untitled work that’s dominated by an exploding rose-like motif. In actually breaking up the surface of the canvas, the incorporation of printed elements seems to unleash an entirely new rhythm and lends all of his forms a renewed sense of purpose.

How these chaotic, cluttered compositions hold together is something of a mystery, but they do. Few involve anything more than an echo of recognizable imagery (the magnified skin of a strawberry, the edge of a pack of cigarettes). But they exude a syntax of their own that the sympathetic viewer will pick up in an instant.

In a gratifying twist, Dowell returns to straight painting in several of the most recent works, dating from the last three years or so, but with all the concentrated energy of the collage works. Most of these are smaller pieces with more centralized compositions. They are so taut that they almost seem to hum. Along with two collage works from 2005, they speak of an artist at the top of his game.

Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 273-0603, through April 15. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

The meshing of man and nature

Combining formal elegance with plain-spoken sociological insight, the photographs in the West Coast debut of Tennessee-born, North Carolina-based Jeff Whetstone at Karyn Lovegrove Gallery present a rich portrait of the relationship between man and nature in today’s rural South. Composed in a manner reminiscent of the 19th century Hudson River School paintings and printed in the muted black and white of survey photographs from the same era, the works have a classical tone.

However their milieu -- the world of hunters, fishermen and off-road vehicles -- is decidedly contemporary. Whetstone approaches it with familiarity and affection, as a participant rather than an observer. One of the show’s most indelible works depicts the artist, bare-chested and muscular, holding the thick, glistening body of a catfish up for the camera.

Whetstone came to the gallery via Catherine Opie, a mentor at Yale who is credited with curating the show, and he shares Opie’s deep-seeded sensitivity to the dynamics of place. Particularly notable in his representation of this world is an absence of the sort of fetishization that often characterizes liberal, urban notions of nature.

Tire tracks circling off a back country road, power lines slanting through a foggy wood, a hunter sleeping in a field of tall grass, a boy with a water snake slithering out of his swimming trunks, a fresh grave in an open field -- each image speaks to the relationship of man (and these are virtually all men) and nature as an entanglement, a meshing. Whetstone’s subjects are never detached from the landscape. Rather, they appear to fade in and out of it, clothed -- whether literally or psychologically -- in varying degrees of camouflage.

These aren’t flashy photographs, but subtle, confident, deeply personal works. They unfold slowly and quietly, transporting viewers to an arcadia that feels worlds away from the smoggy, self-important bustle of the gallery’s mid-Wilshire surroundings.

Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, 6150 Wilshire Blvd. No. 8, Los Angeles, (323) 525-1755, through April 15. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.karynlovegrovegallery.com

The master and his followers

Independent, unpredictable, and genuinely impossible to categorize, Bruce Conner is an artist’s artist: one who is probably more influential than he will ever be popularly famous. A group show at Michael Kohn Gallery, curated by Peter Bartlett, illuminates the nature of this influence by presenting his work alongside that of a small band of young acolytes.

The most dazzling of the works is a large assemblage piece by recent UCLA grad Elliott Hundley involving a table-sized piece of tattered wood, mounted vertically a few feet away from the wall. Papered on both sides with fragments of photographs, drawings, diagrams, bits of plastic, countless straight pins and innumerable sequins, the piece is frenetic, lavish, obsessive, excessive and thoroughly engrossing.

Less flashy but equally intriguing are several small paintings (on paper and panel) by Victoria Neel, the group’s one New York-based artist. Revolving primarily around a Napoleon-like figure, a few domesticated animals and a nude female, the works are loose and sketchy. They veer tantalizingly close to disintegration only to spring back periodically with startlingly precise rococo flourishes.

Also on view are single works by Macrae Semans, Brian Bress, Joshua Aster and Maha Saab.

Comparing these works with the nine on view by Conner -- including several ink drawings and an assemblage piece from the 1960s and 1970s, an engraving from 1987 and a pair of punk-inflected collages from a decade later -- it’s clear that Conner is in no danger of being usurped just yet. But there’s something touching and rather heartening about the tribute.

Michael Kohn Gallery, 8071 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 658-8088, through April 22. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.kohngallery.com