WILSHIRE CENTER

Virginian artist Curtis Ripley does a nifty job of converting a sow’s ear into a silk purse in crudely modeled terra-cotta vessels that function as a surface for genteel abstractions painted in oil.

Ripley favors a slender, elongated shape that makes his pitchers the ceramic equivalent of a Modigliani madonna; they have a swanlike gawkiness that’s endearing, yet cool and elegant. Elegance is the operative adjective in Ripley’s work, which reveals him to be a superior colorist but lacks the heat of necessity. It thrashes out no pressing issue other than the puzzle of how to make a beautiful object.

There’s a cheeky insouciance in the way the work allows itself the luxury of the pursuit the visually pleasing, implying that a thing need no additional justification for existence. Included in the exhibition are charcoal, pastel and oil on paper studies for the vessels on view. (Garth Clark, 170 S. La Brea Ave., to Saturday.)