LA CIENEGA AREA

Curtis Ripley’s paintings are like Agatha Christy mystery novels: clinically neat puzzles, head games played for no reason other than to pass the time. Who’ll be the first to correctly organize the data and make the mental computer sing Bingo!? The clues are all in place: recurring motifs (tables, knives, fruit, women depicted as goddesses); references to art of the past (Francis Bacon, the sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome); enigmatic titles (“Madame X,” “Bathsheba”). Ripley poses his riddle with a skillful hand, an eye for opulent color combinations and the breezy air of detachment that’s as natural as breathing to any self-respecting Modernist. But alas, Ripley’s entertainment is as amusing--and uninvolving--as an outdated drawing room comedy. These pictures are arch, starched and emotionally parched. (Saxon-Lee Gallery, 7525 Beverly Blvd., to Aug. 30.)