La Cienega Area

Once again Gwynn Murrill’s carved and cast animals present refined form that is the sculptural essence of the creature represented. This time around her smooth, rounded domestic beasts seem to speak of immortality and timelessness. They do it by suggesting ancient monuments or gravestone markers. Carved from immutable stone, the highly stylized birds, cats and dogs have a particularly somber, albeit a regal, air.

Murrill is a master at observing and translating animal posture into metal and stone. Her “Onyx Dog” feels as limber as the real thing. But it is the huge aluminum “Clam III” and “Snail” that recall Murrill’s primary fascination with rounded form and her drive for reducing detail to achieve an idealized abstraction.

In an adjacent gallery Murrill’s oil pastel drawings of the Hawaiian islands come as a surprise. Her colorful drawing is as expressionistic and charged as the sculptures are reserved. Each energetic seascape is set in a deep window box and framed with shallow cast metal relief images of tropical flora and fauna. Although it makes for a nice dreamlike montage, the stiff competition between solid frame and the image-in-a-box is troublesome. (Asher/Faure, 612 Almont Drive, to Feb. 3.).