The further one surrenders to the compositional dynamics in each work, the more archetypal or elemental they seem to become. They are classically modernist in this sense, distilling form into an essential image, a snapshot of a prototypical aesthetic idea. This seems resonant with the glyph theme in their titling. Juxtapositional interventions — in this case Hurley’s sticks — resolve into a formal irreducibility.

Ken Collins’s portrait of Richard Diebenkorn, used to promote the recent L.A. Louver show of his works on paper, is peculiar in its emphasis on the distance between the camera and its subject . . .

The potential of this kind of work lies in its ability to pervert reality. This is not to say distort reality, to make it into a “cruel illusion,” but transform it: to manipulate and reconfigure reality according to one’s impulses and for its own sake.

There is a richness in color and fullness of form in these works that drew me into them immediately, and held me there. Within them, colors and shapes seem to crumble and grind together, the complexions plow through each other and themselves.

The works included in Milano Chow’s new show at Bel Ami, “Park La Brea,” conceal themselves from strangers, murmuring discomfort and paranoia under their breath, only audible when confronted with the intention of listening.