Definitions of Heat

The current, two-person show at the Orlando Gallery, titled "Emotional Heat,'' demonstrates the subjectivity of artistic approaches, and compatibility within diversity.

In Lori Markman's monotypes, the female form is the point of expressive departure. The females

are faceless-some used􀀠 as compositional ploys more than subject, others archetypal visual forms fa­miliar to anyone plugged into culture of body worship.

We get clues about the content through the titles. "The Baseball Game" plays off the tension between the upfront female figure􀁖 and the small baseball diamond faintly visible in the background, "Woman Having a Nervous Breakdown" portrays a sense of disloca­tion through the fragmented, contorted figuration. The "Woman Who Refuses to Listen to Reason" appears swollen, with granite skin tones.

With this work, Markman walks a fine line between figurative art and expressive abstraction, while

finding an emotional pulse through it all. It's art about art, and art about being on the verge.

Charleene Rubin·Johnson fol­lows a much looser strategy in her work, generating abstract paint­ings that vaguely hint at real-world connections. We can detect the basic forms of figures, biologi­cal entities or bits of landscape within the soft-edged, amorphous shapes set against white back­drop

"Love Without Limit" shows uncharacteristically vigorous brushwork and visual agitation-­some possibly cataclysmic event underway. Or is that just the con­suming, confusing force of love?

"Emotional Heat," art by Lori Markman and Charleene Rubin-Johnson

through Friday at the

Orlando Gallery

14553 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks

Gallery hours, Tues.-Sat., IO a.m.-4 p.m.;

(818) 789-6012

Joseph Woodard, Special to the Los Angeles Times