Employing complex, crystalline patterns and a bright, retro palette, David Lloyd creates mixed-media paintings on shaped panels. “There’s a sort of narrative to it,” he says. “They’re based on a sort of yin and yang of the real world and the mystical world.” Lloyd often constructs his compositions along a symmetrical axis, creating dialectical juxtapositions between hard-edged geometry and figurative photographic imagery, or balancing mystical texts—included on one edge of the painting—with cogent quotes from philosophers on the other, so that restrictive formalism butts up against madcap gestural painting and handwriting, and disparate worldviews seem to mirror each other. Sharing affinities with other beach-loving artists like Ashley Bickerton and John Baldessari, Lloyd’s work is emblematic of the unconventional frontier avant-garde art that California is known for.