Wilshire Center

Realist painter Pat Terrell O’Neal shows a distant cousin of the American Impressionist genre complete with de rigueur floral bouquets and women tending sun-drenched gardens. In “Mother and Child Reading,” mom’s porcelain face is bathed in a violet glow and the green-tinged, enraptured visage of her charge makes him look like he’s visiting from another planet. This and other works share a hyper-real emotionalism better suited to fairy-tale illustration. The gnarled brown woods in “Enchanted Forest” barter Technicolor sweetness for monochromatic mysticism and the work is better for it. On the whole, O’Neal’s paintings raise the same criticism plaguing so-called American Impressionism: Genuine humanism and often formidable painting skill are wasted on insipid, off-putting content. (Gallery 170, 170 S. La Brea Ave., to June 18.)