On a solo expedition

WORDS such as “couple,” “mate,” “partner,” “pair” and “match” can make single women think not of wedded bliss but of their own loneliness.

Those words also have other, non-conjugal associations, and perhaps it would ease some women’s pain, or at least make them smile a little, to be reminded that dates are a fruit and socks also have mates.

Los Angeles artist Corey Stein plays with these varied meanings in a series of 16 pastel-and-paper self-portraits that put a gently humorous spin on her predicament as a single woman in her early 40s. Her series “Trying to Pick Up a Gallery Guyde” is on view at the Sherry Frumkin Gallery in Santa Monica through Feb. 24.

Several of the “Gallery Guyde” portraits draw on one of Stein’s favorite hobbies, square-dancing, to highlight the pathos of being a lone woman at an event where a partner is required.

In “Mate,” Stein is in a classic square-dancing outfit -- red vest, white puffy-sleeved blouse and lacy black skirt, with a nametag that says, “Solo.” The captions read, “My dog has a mate. My sock has a mate. My coffee has a mate.”

“Partner” shows Stein in a red-white-and-blue square-dancing dress with the American flag as a backdrop. She is wearing the “Solo” tag again -- people who attend square-dances alone wear such a tag, Stein says -- and holding a matching red-white-and-blue men’s shirt on a hanger. “The caller has a partner. The lawyer has a partner. The bank robber has a partner.”

In each case, the viewer can supply the next sentence: “I don’t have a mate.” “I don’t have a partner.”

“In my 20s, like in college, I thought, ‘That guy’s so cute, he needs a girlfriend. Who can I set him up with?’ I never even thought about me,” Stein said in an interview at the gallery last week. “In my 30s, I think I was scared of guys. Now I’m ready to go.”

“Gallery Guyde” is mostly about finding a man, but finding gallery representation was also on Stein’s mind as she was making the series during the last three years. Her art has been featured at museums and she has participated in group shows, but this is her first solo gallery show in more than a decade.

One of the self-portraits, “Spotted,” does not seem obviously connected to either search. It shows Stein in leopard print boots holding her pet gecko, Jennifer (now deceased), with these captions: “Jennifer is spotted. My boots are spotted. The cricket has been spotted.”

The connection becomes clearer when you notice that the cricket is standing on a plastic Solo cup lid. And then there is the ambivalence about being discovered that plagues the more neurotic among single people and unrepresented artists.

“You want to be spotted but you don’t,” Stein explained. “Part of you wants to crawl under a rock.”

STEIN studied with conceptual artist John Baldessari and others at CalArts in the 1980s. Much of her previous work has dealt, directly or indirectly, with the surgery she had at age 28 to remove a part of her brain that was causing debilitating epileptic seizures. Her brother -- filmmaker and novelist Garth Stein -- made a documentary about the surgery, “When Your Head’s Not a Head, It’s a Nut,” that aired on PBS in 1993.

For “Gallery Guyde,” Stein drew dresses, earrings and locks of hair, then used an X-Acto knife to cut them out and Elmer’s glue to layer them. The intricate pieces look two-dimensional from far away but up close have a paper-doll-like quality. All of the rather eccentric outfits and hairstyles have been worn by the real Stein at one time or another.

With “Gallery Guyde’s” opening in mid-January, Stein’s search for gallery representation has come to a close. At least for now, she has returned to Sherry Frumkin, where she had her last solo show, “Please Do Not Twirl Me,” in 1993.

“You would never misidentify one of her pieces as someone else’s. They’re so unique to her and they’re so dependent on words and the way words and images play off each other,” Frumkin said of Stein’s work.

There may be hope in the dating realm too. Stein is still trying to master e-mail and other computer basics, but friends have helped her set up an online dating profile. She plans to go out soon with a guy she met online who also likes square-dancing.

weekend@latimes.com

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‘Trying to Pick Up a Gallery Guyde’

Where: Sherry Frumkin Gallery, 3026 Airport Ave., Studio 21, Santa Monica

When: noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays

Ends: Feb. 24

Price: Free

Info: (310) 397-7493, www.frumkingallery.com