Wilshire Center

Hans Burkhardt’s careening painting styles over the last 51 years make it impossible to place his career neatly against the backdrop of the American art scene. But pigeon holes and art movements aside, it is an art as powerful in its solid draftsmanship as it is in its deeply felt social conscience.

Not one for following convention (he made abstract art here long before L.A. wanted to accept it) and eschewing notions of internal consistency, Burkhardt has produced paintings that have a curious split personality. They go from light and lyrical figurative works or landscapes to the overwhelming mortal outrage of his war protests. These monumental assemblage canvasses, done in emotional, reactive outbursts against the waste of war and social injustice are so powerful they outstrip his other images. Included in this exhibit are several of his strongest paintings such as the 1968 “My Lai” with its camouflage gray-green surface of thick, gunky paint littered with real human skulls and “Finale,” the poignant 1974 collage of burlap sacks and weeping wooden stakes.

If these pieces are cathartic for the artist they are shocking for the viewer who must confront a visual outpouring of pain that becomes more and more distilled over time. The most recent large scale oil, “So Near, So Far,” has the defiled stillness of a church used for executions. It resembles a crumbling wall pierced by sharpened wooden stakes and splattered with burlap shadow figures that flank a real crucifix like the convicts on Golgotha. The tangible, visceral sense of prolonged torture in this image strongly belies its spartan sense of order and touches the essence of spiritual pain. In doing so, this and the other anti-war images reach an intensity of feeling that becomes an act of faith in the healing power of art, for the individual artist and society. (Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, 357 N. La Brea Ave., to Oct. 31.