LA CIENEGA AREA

Working the same ravaged field as Samuel Beckett, John Frame fashions miniature dioramas that explore the bone-rattling terror of consciousness; whereas Beckett finds plenty to laugh about in what he sees as humanity’s terrible fate, Frame simply shudders with despair. An overwhelming sense of evil seems to infect these minuscule tableaux, and the players in Frame’s morality plays surrender to that evil with an air of resignation that’s at once moving and distressing.

Working with wood, lead, concrete, alabaster and pigment, he designs his shrines to Existentialism according to instinct, and comments that he intends his nightmarish puppet theater to pose questions rather than offer pat solutions. There is, however, little question as to the destiny of the contorted Everyman who appears repeatedly in Frame’s work. With the cadaverous white face of a marionette, this beleaguered fool obviously realizes there’s no escaping fate, and the psychic nausea he experiences is easily read. A piece with the appearance of a modern crucifix finds the head of the Jesus figure squished by an ornate vise; thus the pivotal episode of Western religion is reduced to nothing more than a terrible joke. Beautifully crafted though it is, Frame’s work is very dark indeed.

Also on view are paintings by Tony DeLap. Ideas of magic--levitation in particular--have always been central to DeLap’s aesthetic, but they are more or less absent from this earthbound work which takes its primary cue from Russian Constructivism. Sculptural wall pieces made of wood, canvas and acrylic, these crisp geometric exercises in black and white are elegant, perfectly resolved and a trifle academic. (Jan Turner, 8000 Melrose Ave., to Feb. 28.)