Derek Paul Jack Boyle at Smart Objects

On View through November 2nd.

Off of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, a certain kind of magic brews in the paintings of Derek Paul Jack Boyle. His paintings are potently absent of human life, but the objects in them become animated in unexpected ways—like the infamous dancing broomsticks in Fantasia. In one, eerie pink stairways are plopped into a serene yet ominous forest scape. Elsewhere, clocks or doors pile onto each other in off-kilter interior spaces. Boyle’s works offer us portals—into another room, another dimension, or into the uncanny recesses of our own minds. A strange, lumpy carpeting covers the gallery floor, bringing the unsettling mood of Boyle’s paintings underfoot and into dimensional space.