The Valley

It’s good to know that after an overdose of “Neo Excessive” in the early ‘80s, the real stuff can still catch eye and heart. Paintings by newcomer Dona Windbiel do both. Like Expressionism’s ancestors--the Fauves and Die Brucke--Windbiel gives the everyday agonized urgency. Unabashed colors applied in large sculptural swaths gnash out shapes. In “Scranta Family,” we see the hollowed eyes of staring clan members closely assembled but emotionally disengaged. Chunky, abbreviated female forms emerge from pockets of shadow in “Two Women.” In “Third Party” a comfy scene of two crew-cut couch potatoes is transformed into a loaded psychodrama. Windbiel’s nudes are unpolished and uncommunicative, but several large paintings and a paneled floor screen featuring a night cafe where sailor and dame dance cheek to cheek bode well for this new name. (Orlando Gallery, 14553 Ventura Blvd., to Saturday.)