Machine Dreams

Julie Rofman, a recent graduate of California State University at Long Beach, shows the sophistication that emerges from Southern California art programs and why some New York dealers head to the West Coast around graduation time to snap up the cream of the graduating crop. It’s not unprecedented for these young artists to get major Los Angeles or New York gallery representation (sometimes both) and start selling their work for five figures. This affects the art market in too many ways to talk about here, but, at the very least, it inspires students to work hard at their craft.

Rofman describes her imaginary scenarios as “self-envisioned spaces where nonspecific artificial materials converge and collect.” The compressed air inside her canvases is filled with groupings of abstract, machinelike things. You think you recognize the mechanical parts that are collected in a sort of space-age junk heap, but you don’t. Closer examination reveals that what appear to be car parts and machine bits are really just shapes that have only a mechanical sensibility. You can’t pinpoint the shapes, and the colors don’t give any clues as to what these objects may be.

Using strong pastels — pinks, oranges, blues — Rofman paints groundless spaces in which she weaves together these abstract shapes that never actually cohere in a translatable fashion. Yet the paintings make perfect compositional sense. They are strong, sure-footed and rooted in excellent studio practice.

The work recalls that of Dada and Surrealist artist Francis Picabia, whose machinelike forms made no actual sense but fit into a dream realm in which all things and relationships were up for grabs.

In “Epicenter,” one of the largest canvases, a pink ribbon of paint arches up from the bottom and sears through the middle. Odd contraptions and quirky objects populate the painting. Rendered in shades of blue, orange and other similarly bright hues, these objects seem to float free but are formally tied together through the composition’s strength. Rofman’s control of foreground, middle and background creates dynamic depth that allows the objects to interact as if the space were “real” or three-dimensional. In the horizontal canvas “Conglomerate,” Rofman’s ribbons of color converge in a giant, active fan that’s expansive on the left but dwindles to a few faded ribbons on the extreme right. Like all of her other works, “Conglomerate” feels whimsically nonsensical and yet totally logical. Perfect.