WILSHIRE CENTER

As a Californian transplanted to New York, Judith Simonian seems to see her new home through a veil of mysticism. As she looks out windows of high rises, through courtyards and at distant buildings, she admits an element of decadence and shabbiness into an essentially romantic view of the city.

It’s a wistfully observed den of layers, seen through wrought-iron fences, ornate grillwork, louvered blinds, shafts of light and gauzy curtains of color. Simonian doesn’t illustrate the city; she reveals her feelings about it, concentrating on the area around her first apartment there. You sense about equal parts sadness and wonder as she sets forth an atmosphere of faded elegance. The only human presence in her acrylics on canvas and paper is a little figure, curled up on the prow of a boat in what appears to be a flooded landscape.

This new work--drenched in yearnings for the past--is distinctively Simonian’s, but it has undergone a transformation of quite a different kind than might be expected. New York seems to have lightened her touch and softened her palette to one in which lavender-grays and blues predominate. Except for a waterfall in “Feldman’s View” and a couple of dizzying views in drawings, she has reduced the contrasts and drama of her work, and rendered her painting more traditional. In the process, she has produced a reflective body of work that effectively absorbs her ongoing interest in history into the discovery of new surroundings. (Ovsey Gallery, in a new location at 126 N. La Brea Ave., to May 10.)