Review: Nathan Mabry’s splendid drawings and smile-inducing sculptures

The first room of the exhibition at Cherry and Martin has five splendid drawings, each created by layering outlines of faces taken from art objects. They suggest Asian, African or Native American sources, but also European art. The outlines are so thoroughly intertwined that it’s impossible to tease out individual faces with any certainty.

Artist Nathan Mabry also has framed the drawings behind frosted glass, giving them a slightly fuzzy appearance, and when viewed from an angle, an almost three-dimensional feel. They are beautifully complex palimpsests of our cultural heritage.

They are also examples of how Mabry is taking his juxtapositions of “low” and “high” art iconography in increasingly subtle directions.

A second gallery has large, black metal sculptures reminiscent of midcentury abstract works, in particular that of British sculptor Anthony Caro. But in place of Caro’s effortless balance, Mabry’s agglomerations are held together with black C-clamps and dotted with black beverage cans, gloves and buckets. Mabry seems to be referring to labor here, nodding to the fabrication of much contemporary sculpture by workers, not artists.

These pieces are interspersed with small, bright red sculptures of animals or plants, interacting with other objects. They feel like the stuff of fables: A snake balancing on a stack of apples. A rat towing a bunch of grapes. Palette-wise, they make a classic modernist pairing with the sculptures — black and red. But their surreal irreverence takes the sanctity of high art down a notch by leavening it with humorous, folksy tableaux.

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Cherry and Martin, 2712 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 559-0100, through May 14. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.cherryandmartin.com