Hansen's Paintings Are Nearly Sculpture. Saturday, August 7, 1999 All four of painter Mike Hansen's works currently at the Lonsdale Gallery are shaped canvases, each made up of two chunky segments. They are so thick as to approach the condition of sculpture, but their surfaces are painterly. In fact, covered with encaustic (pigment suspended in wax) as gummy as cake icing, Hansen's surfaces seem almost edible. The pendulous left-hand segment of Within Your Reach #1, for example, is a luscious, creamy white, shot through with bluish streaks, like Gorgonzola. The lower part of Within Your Reach #3 is a high -caloric cream with strands of green, like leek-and-potato soup. In the long run the most interesting thing is the way Hansen's muscular treatment of his big, coarse macho shapes is constantly in contention with the luminous delicacy of his paint handling. Also at Lonsdale, there are new works on paper by Gretchen Sankey, dizzingly complex and meticulously rendered parables in ink and gouache about (usually) the life of a young woman in an essentially inhospitable culture. Sankey's ease with her own surreal narrative shorthand -- in the upper corner of Steam, for example, two microscopic cats pull apart a tiny loaf of Wonder Bread -- makes for demanding looking. Following Sankey is like learning a new language, and it's just as rewarding. To Sept. 26. Hansens, $6,500 each; Sankeys, $1,200 and $1,800. 333 Lonsdale Road, Second floor, Toronto. 416-487-8939.