TO TAKE ON the topic of fame after Andy Warhol would seem to present an impossible task for any painter. But David Lyle, for his exhibit "Fame" at Heather Marx Gallery, gathers images for his artwork from a time before mass media became so ubiquitous and Warhol made fame so famous. He paints images from photographs he collects from the '50s and '60s that celebrate personal accomplishments and still betray a strong sense of the local. In Teen Dreams, a young woman poses with a tiara on her head and an oversize medallion around her neck. Perhaps she is the homecoming queen of her high school or college, enjoying local celebrity, which may constitute a high point in her life; one can imagine her parents or grandparents treasuring the image on their mantel. In State Fair Domination, a middle-aged woman with heavy arms holds up a cake – remotely reminiscent of a Wayne Thiebaud painting – adorned with a ribbon that reads, "State Fair First Premium." And in Best in Breed, a homely woman wearing glasses and a dress decorated with seashells poses with her cocker spaniel. Lyle's local heroes are not famous. Their renown is limited, and their successes are modest. Beneath his brush, in fact, they often appear pathetic and absurd. Lyle seems to scorn his subjects as if they confused their local celebrity with fame or accomplishment. His paintings are humorous send-ups of kitsch Americana, but they're also deeply nostalgic. He explores his subjects' sense of celebrity with an existential melancholy. In the corner of the gallery, he has heaped a pile of trophies, which – like the photos he paints – now amount to little more than refuse but nevertheless carry emotional weight as the remnants of dreams fulfilled and struggles that once shaped peoples' lives. As a further complication, Lyle's study focuses exclusively on women. His titillating paintings of beauty queens, show girls, and nude bathers seem simply to be the result of his own personal fascinations. But, as a series, they also refer to a time when women's accomplishments were often restricted to ornamentation and domesticity. He mourns these past generations with both sincerity and cynicism, ridiculing their provincial sense of success while simultaneously exploring the sadness in it. Tues.-Fri., 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m., 77 Geary, second fl., S.F. (415) 627-9111. (Clark Buckner)