LA CIENEGA AREA

Michael Wheelden shows realistic paintings of house facades. The pastel structures are painted with a draftsman’s virtuousity that lets Wheelden play with our perceptions as he places perspective objects taut to the picture plane and then juts a banister or awning out into our space. The result is that these pieces go from being flat and poster-like to folksy records of all manner of dwellings from beach houses to stucco tract homes. Only in “Moon in Gemini” does Wheelden hint at Hopper’s quality of empty, quiet structures that say much.

Also shown are Carol Rosenak’s oil-on-paper works that clutter all sorts of objects from satin and silk scarfs to antique dolls, birds’ eggs, china vases and an array of trinkets on oddly inclined surfaces. Though the compositions have a romantic, nostalgic quality, the overriding feeling is that they’re orchestrated to let Rosenak show her skills (sometimes keen, sometimes not) as a copier of textures and shapes. (Ankrum Gallery, 657 La Cienega Blvd., to Feb. 7).