Wilshire

There has been so much attention to conceptual and abstract art in Germany that folks forget the consistent strain of Expressionist representational art ebbing and flowing right alongside it. A first West Coast show for German representational painter Klaus Fussmann introduces us to one painting (sadly, not nearly enough) and a handful of smaller gouaches, watercolors and pastels.

Fussmann, a respected teacher and highly regarded painter in Germany, is so fresh and unacerbic in small views of California poppies, gardens and meadows that we hardly recognize a Nordic hand. His palette is atypically bright, unmixed and luminous. He drives colored pigment deep into the pulp with quick, controlled strokes so that objects, though thoroughly able to capture the physical and affective essence of a scene, are on close inspection no more than well-placed abstract marks. (Wenger Gallery 828 N. La Brea Ave., to Nov. 25).