The Art of Lee Waisler

Lee Waisler's Jewish family fled Central Europe in 1938 and settled in California. In symbolical geometrical paintings and skeletal sculptures, this Los Angeles-based artist pursues a ``recovery of reality'' in the wake of the post-Nietzschean death of God and the shadow of the Holocaust. Bent-wood forms and iconic figures, set in intensely vibrant fields of color, evoke an inner space encompassing the artist's private musings on chaos and the act of creation. Some of the semi-abstracts are about, or inspired by, the anguish of Jewish children in Nazi concentration camps, the Diaspora, the Messiah myth and the stormy relationship of Freud and Jung. British scholar Wendon's helpful notes are essential to understanding the full import of the canvases. His searching essay explores Waisler's symbolism and considers earlier works like the outdoor mobile sculpture Under the Mushroom , a protest against the nuclear threat hanging over our heads. (May)