Tom LaDuke's new paintings and sculptures grace this longtime Santa Monica gallery’s new Culver City location. His enigmatic works are layered compositions drawn from multiple sources and mixed together on paintings’ surfaces. In each work there is a scene from a film, the reflection of the studio seen when watching the film, over which La Duke has gesturally painted fragments from a well known painting. The sources might only be apparent to real art and film connoisseurs, however the visual effects are stunning, as LaDuke fuses personal with universal meaning through the language of pop media and art history. In addition to the paintings, LaDuke has also created small sculptures that replicate a plastic bag, a feather, a hanging leaf as well as a spider's web in exacting detail. While the relationship between the sculptures and the paintings is tenuous, both bodies of work are a delight on their own.
