LA CIENEGA AREA

Jonathan Ellis’ charred skulls and vessel-heads aren’t exactly timeless, but they cut a wide swath of history. Most of his sculptures and charcoal drawings resemble relics of ancient Middle Eastern cultures and ruminate on the human image as preserved by centuries of artists. Other works--notably a man with a corkscrew body and a coiled snake with a human head--are in line with the cartoonish variety of Angst that has characterized Neo-Expressionism. And when Ellis makes a big point of putting his heads on classical column pedestals, he aligns himself with Post-Modernism’s historical pastiches.

That noted, we see that Ellis is a hip artist, but is he a convincingly expressive one? Yes, for the most part. The heads--whether monumentally large, just under life-size or tiny--have an undeniable presence. Modeled of hydrocal (plaster with a plastic component for strength) and treated so that ivory pates descend to blackened necks, they look hand-made by someone who has thought about the structure of a head and the emotion it can evoke, even without features. As he makes generalized heads (with long slits for eyes but no distinct noses, mouths or ears), Ellis laces a heroic sense of the past with present-day disillusionment. In the process, he rescues his art from the suffocating clutches of fashion. (Michael Kohn Gallery, 313 N. Robertson Blvd., to April 12.)