LA CIENEGA AREA

The collagist’s mentality is now so thoroughly ingrained in painting that it seems quite normal for an artist to merge disparate images and multiple pieces. If the method is good enough for such well-publicized figures as Robert Rauschenberg and David Salle, what’s to stop a host of followers?

Nothing, by the look of Robert Smith’s paintings. The former Californian, now living in Arizona, shows 18 paintings ranging from single panels to an installation wrapping around one corner and a temporary wall in the gallery. Small works overlay seemingly unrelated images--leaning figures with smokestacks, birds with geometric volumes--while larger ones combine such panels. The installation, called “Inconsolable Science,” has an architectonic arrangement of paintings lodged on a backdrop of illusionistic, stair-stepped bricks.

Apart from relaying the belief that more is better, this art fails to reveal its conceptual underpinnings. It has a rather ominous edge, due to harsh color and images of the military and death. It also has kissing couples and lovebirds, but they don’t seem intended to balance the violence with sweetness. Everything is set forth in a dry, Expressionistic style that unifies the art but also makes it heavy-handed.

Smith is neither a cheerfully eclectic, Rauschenberg-style reporter nor a Salle-type master of “quotations” from other artists. That’s fine, but he needs to find his own voice in what has become a populous chorus. (Eilat Gordin Gallery, 644 N. Robertson Blvd., to Feb. 4.)