Michael Genovese & Lucian Smith @ Moran Bondaroff

Michael Genovese opened his 3rd solo show at Moran Bondaroff on La Cienega on Saturday night.  I have to admit I was very impressed with these intricately painted works and the perfection that Genovese achieved.  
Large, very gessoed canvas' painted in grids in Polyurethane (basic car paint).  The surface was magnificent with few if any imperfections.  His concept is that these came from his word searchs on his mobile phone where the colored grids would appear while the phone did its thing.   Not entirely sure that I get this connection to the art but they are very nice!  Historically they bring up Mondrian and his use of grid and color
This show is a far cry from his "cracks in the wall" show Lines and Cracks and Zebras and Horses" at Ow Wow Gallery in 2013.  

In the small back gallery were small paintings, really small!  
Lucian Smith had a series of "small" oil on linen paintings, 5 to be exact.  About the size of a sheet of paper and about that interesting.  From a distance they could be read as waves on the beach but up close this effect was lost.   Forbes featured Smith twice in its 2013 and 2014 list of 30 under 30 in their "Art & Style" list and the New York Times and Vogue Magazine both named him the art world Wunderkind. I didnt get either of those in this small show but hey I did enjoy the proximity to the bar!