La Cienega Area

Loretta Kramer shows small mono prints dominated by the looming figure of a black crow pushed close to the picture plane. Tooled to look more like a shadow than a realistic rendition, the crow becomes symbolic. Indeed, we’re told the works are inspired by the poems of Ted Hughes who taps the blackbird’s religious and magical meanings through the literature and art of many cultures. In Kramer’s works, the crow hovers--talons showing or back arched--over hazy backdrops in grayed, deep blues that suggest buildings, mountainscapes or shallow areas of color veiled in atmosphere. In “Crow opened his mouth but what came out was charred black,” Kramer works back into the finished monoprint with some sooty, textured pigment, making this one of the few works that actually transmits the animal’s sinister elegance. (Marilyn Pink, 760 N. La Cienega Blvd., to Sept. 30).