Knotty Boy : Thickly entangled squiggles are the recurring theme of Neville Gerson’s works.

Neville Gerson’s paintings, now at the G. Childress Gallery in Ojai, speak softly but insistently. They convey an abstract language of knotty linear activity, a network of squiggles. And there is life, real and imagined, in those squiggles.

Gerson, born in Scotland and now based in Thousand Oaks, showed his work earlier this year in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station.

His appearance at Childress makes for a refreshing departure--normally the work here leans away from abstraction. It’s a show that requires some time spent, some mental energy extended toward the artist’s concept, to get the full measure of its allure.

Casual glances won’t dent the surface. He feels no need to stray from the essential, recurring syntax: It’s a tightly defined, personal style in which blankets of curling brush strokes assemble into thickets, or long curling lines tie themselves into elaborate knots, with the surface activity generally consuming the composition.

Lines become lost in the flurry and density, to the point where the focus is less on the specifics of line than on an overall textural effect. Yet we never lose sight of the handiwork involved in these paintings.

The artist’s active hand is everywhere, in the action of painterly swooshes or the spaghetti of meandering lines, drawn as if by a virtuoso finger-painter.

Often, his palette is limited, based on the contrast of foreground and background--dark green lines on yellow, rust on black or turquoise on forest colors.

But one of the most affecting paintings is an exception.

Here, a busy swirl of multicolored swooping brush strokes is light blue, with glints of orange and green. The effect is one of blithe turbulence, a chattering pell-mell of individual strokes rather than a cumulative, self-entangling line.

The paintings are not as monochromatic as they seem at first glance but are built up through varied colors and brushing effects. Likewise, the show isn’t as single-faceted as it might initially seem.

Within the apparently limited parameters of his style, Gerson finds diverse detours of expression. He appears to be entangled in the process of discovery.

DETAILS

“Surface Perceptions,” paintings by Neville Gerson, through Sept. 27 at G. Childress Gallery, 319 E. El Roblar, in Ojai. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; 640-1387.

Wild Planet, Mild Art: Nature rules, not surprisingly, in the two-person show called “Wild Planet” at the Ojai Center for the Arts this month. Animalia, viewed point-blank and with the affection of doting portraiture, and assorted landscape scenes convey a clear agenda, celebrating the flora and fauna of the world outside human intervention.

Arlene Origoni’s close-up painting of a hippo, or a charming small image of a duo of swine, appeals to our empathy for the animal kingdom, as does Tom Hardcastle’s “Winston,” a rhino seen perhaps a bit too up-close.

His portrait of a majestic leopard, “Diana,” finds a few of the animal’s spots transforming into silhouettes of animals running--fear-fueled prey?

Both artists also show nicely rendered landscape works, from idyllic Hawaiian scenes to dunes to idyllic local color.

Although their artistry is solid and painterly skills in check, the artists frequently bump up against the kitsch factor, slipping into the realm of cuddly animal postcard art.

Ironically, in that setting, we see the subjects less as wild or natural than as idealized, kept at an arm’s length from nature’s more brutal realities. When that happens, we celebrate the idea and images of animals within cages of our own sentimentalizing, categorizing human nature.

It’s best to view them as pretty pictures and bypass the external cultural implications.

DETAILS

“Wild Planet,” paintings by Arlene Origoni and Tom Hardcastle, through Sept. 30 at the Ojai Center for the Arts, 113 S. Montgomery St. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; 646-0117.

Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].