Pressing Concerns

Social commentary and other direct references prevail in “Graphic Comment,” the current group show of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society. Spread about the society’s home gallery, the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood, the show presents an array of outlooks and artistic approaches.

A suitable thematic entry point to the show could be Belle Osipow’s “Through the Window Shade,” looking through a window frame at graffiti-spattered walls outside. Jay Rivkin, who curated the show, displays a few meticulous pencil-collage pieces, including “Birth: The Delivery,” a loaded image in which an egg is gripped not by a stork but by a bird of prey over a cityscape far below.

The plight of the homeless demands care to avoid cliche. Jochen Stucke’s “SFV Escalator” achieves a quiet dignity and visual inventiveness. Its rumpled subject is seen folded into a corner below the diagonal escalator, its harried, faceless passengers contrasting with the man’s inert form.

David Rose, who spent years as a courtroom sketch artist, drew “Watts Riot Incident” in that familiar quick sketch style that emphasizes the grit of the moment. Bob Friemark’s “Free Kuwait” is less direct, but humorous with its dancing rows of raggedly drawn oil pumps.

Holocaust victims appear in the expressionistic style of Kathe Kollwitz in David Shapiro’s woodcut “We Bear Witness.” Sexual tension between a man and woman is subtly alluded to in William Kitchen’s intaglio piece “Anima and Animus.”

And there’s an existential flavor to Laurie Meinke’s “Nature Screams,” which uses the wriggly sufferer from Munch’s “The Scream” in a photo etching that takes an ecological turn.

Printmaking is an active, hybrid medium for Alberta Fins, whose “Filtered Vision” describes her modus operandi in art-making. The piece is a characteristic collision of images--from religious iconography to chicken wire and abstract swatches--all to intriguing effect.

Art comes in multiple shapes, intensities and sizes in this exhibition, underscoring the diversity of printmakers.

The largest piece is Patrick Merrill’s impressive “Laius and Oedipus,” a diptych mixing woodcut and etching. The smallest is Michael Voors’ “Pompeii Dog,” an enigma that demands scrutiny.

Humor and creepiness converge in Robert W. Brown’s serigraph “Invasion.” Cheerful hues and block-building composition belie the subject of abused privacy, in which a woman in a house is spied upon by the dour, inquisitive mug of J. Edgar Hoover and another prowling mystery man outside.

This conveys what is perhaps the show’s message: Everything is fine, except that it isn’t.

On another note, it’s nice to see art in this fine space in the middle of the surprisingly art-sparse NoHo Arts District.

Because of various logistical issues, the regularity of shows at the Lankershim Arts Center is down from earlier years. One hopes for more frequent doses of art in the future. NoHo needs it.

BE THERE

“Graphic Comment,” through Feb. 24 at the Lankershim Arts Center Gallery, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Gallery hours: Thursday-Saturday, 3-6:30 p.m. (818) 752-2682.