Small pieces drawn and found make up “Everyone Goes Home at the End of the Day.”

Jorge Pantoja might be best known for his cinematic take in his paintings and drawings: smallish canvases filled with color but also melancholy and nostalgia, with somewhat figurative depictions of movies and memories from his past, which started in Cuba and continued on to Miami.

“Everyone Goes Home at the End of the Day” is a departure from those images, but not from their conceptual origins. The solo exhibit that just opened at Under the Bridge gallery – the front area of studios turned into an exhibition space by artist Lou Anne Colodny – in North Miami is an unexpected change of pace. Curated by William Cordova, the essential narrative is still there, fragments of the past and present represented in small stills, except this time they are told not with painting (for the most part) but with objects, or “ephemera and refuse.”

Pantoja’s work is never frivolous or thrown together. It’s always fastidiously thought-out and crafted, with a constant cinematic quality that suggests a darkness at the end of the tunnel. But in this exhibit there seems to be an element of levity, where the sculptures simply tell tales.

“La Jungla” in the solo exhibit from Jorge Pantoja.

For instance, the artist explains the title. A resident of South Beach for years, he has constantly walked by the Miami Beach Police Station, where he noticed that “Everyone Goes Home at the End of the Day” is etched on a wall. That’s a slice of life that really has no reason for being there, but is an observation. Small objects such as a napkin folded and painted in specific colors to resemble the handkerchiefs that Cuban youth brigades wear, share the space with a small drawing of a yellow, rising sun, a reference to the Japanese flag. One piece is titled “Pontiac,” another “Gangland.”

How do they work together, these little pieces that are drawn on fragile material or are reformulated found objects? Placed around the gallery space, they reveal a journey; abstracted ephemera, fragments from a life, each one a tiny contemplative shrine.

“Everyone Goes Home at the End of the Day” by Jorge Pantoja runs through March 15 at Under the Bridge, 12425 NE 13th Ave., North Miami; by appointment, 305-987-4437.