The Galleries : Santa Monica

Freud once said that sometimes a cigar’s just a cigar, but somehow we refuse to be satisfied with such simple explanations. We have a compulsion to read deeper meanings into things, to sort ambiguous images and events into manageable systems of thought, hoping against hope that the universe is not a random free-for-all, that some master plan is running the show.

Salvador Dali built a career on this fundamental hunger, and latter-day Surrealist Paul Singdahlsen picks up where he left off. A visionary landscape artist who combines the visual punning of Magritte with the menacing mood of M.C. Escher, Singdahlsen takes us into an uncomfortable realm where metaphysical mayhem seems ever on the verge of unleashing itself. It’s always night in Singdahlsen’s universe, and the sound of thunder can be heard, while the smell of sulfur hangs heavy in the air. Manmade structures--bridges, lighthouses, trains--pulsate with symbolic meaning as they float in a vast empty land that we somehow recognize but know we’ve never visited.

Raised in New Mexico, Singdahlsen has a talent for telegraphing the eerie power of the desert, and a particularly effective desert view titled “Grid” puts one in mind of creepy stories of cattle mutilations and UFOs. There’s something ominous afoot here, and the answer to this and every riddle is right before our eyes, if we can but figure out how to decode the data.

Also on view are Abstract Expressionist paintings and drawings by British artist Jim Bird. Employing the elegant, classical approach to abstraction perfected by Richard Diebenkorn, Bird combines highly textured surfaces with a palette built around a color best described as phlegm yellow. The results are highly decorative and not particularly interesting. (Karl Bornstein Gallery, 1658 1/2 10th St., to March 11.)