Paris Green Gallery in La Jolla (7825...

LA JOLLA —  Paris Green Gallery in La Jolla (7825 Fay Ave.) is exhibiting figurative bronze sculptures, entitled, as a group, “Between Myth and Reality” by Max DeMoss.

DeMoss, a Valle Vista resident who is an instructor at Mount San Jacinto College, eschews the elegant finish of internationally renowned, Venice-based sculptor Robert Graham, who also casts the human figure in bronze, for a distressed surface. Where Graham refers to the ideal beauty of the classical tradition, DeMoss suggests the contingency of all things--beauty as well as life.

A major work on view is “Vis Inertia,” a life-size female form supported at the viewer’s eye level by two vertical rods. The piece was previously exhibited during the Olympic cross-country equestrian events, outdoors at Fairbanks Ranch. Other flying figures, such as “Axis,” are also to be seen.

DeMoss also makes tableaux of small figures in political, social or cultural commentaries. “Demetria, Demetria: Mother, Daughter, Novice. But for the Icarus Flight,” for example, refers to the deaths of a grandmother, daughter and granddaughter who were sucked out of a plane in which a terrorist bomb exploded during a flight over Greece.

The exhibit continues through April 11.

Gallery Eight in La Jolla (7464 Girard Ave.) is exhibiting two groups of ceramic works by Los Angeles-based artist Randall Au.

Ten small swimming pools--round, rectangular and kidney-shaped--with palm trees are pleasant decorations.

They have no relationship to Au’s architectural forms, which resemble small arches and are also pleasant decorations.

The exhibit continues through March 21.

Circle Gallery in Old Town (2501 San Diego Ave.) is exhibiting recent paintings, collages, monotypes and original graphics by Arthur Secunda.

No matter what the medium might be, the artist generally uses the same compositional structure: rough-edged (either torn or simulated torn) horizontal bands of luscious, bright colors.

Secunda, who had a distinguished career until the 1960s, has used the same formula for the last 15 years or so. At their best, the works are decorative. Several, however, are embarrassing and at least one is just plain dreadful.

The exhibit continues through March 31.

The ART Beasley Gallery, also in Old Town (2802 Juan St.), is exhibiting the works of four artists.

Clint Stoddard floats geometric and biomorphic shapes in mysterious earth-colored atmospheres.

In one very effective charcoal drawing (Untitled No. 14) there is a suggestion of a torso and in the Untitled oil painting (No. 15), a table. In other works a chair appears.

Stoddard reveals the beauty that can still be found in what is now a conservative way of painting.

Richard Meyer’s rough, vertical abstract raku forms express the same kind of beauty in three dimensions.

Avery Falkner’s mixed-media paintings, geometric compositions in juicy colors that recall Matisse in southern France, are a colorful and playful complement to the high seriousness of Stoddard and Meyer.

William Dubin’s watercolors of local land- and seascapes are recognizable and unexceptional. The medium appears muddied rather than luminous.

The exhibition continues through April 4.