A Spin Through Some of the Week’s Biggest Gallery Shows in Los Angeles

'Rounding out Melrose Hill are several pop-up shows by galleries from other cities; some may be looking for greater exposure here, while others may simply be testing out the waters. Across the street from the Yuskavage show, in a shed-like structure in a parking lot, San Francisco’s two-year-old gallery House of Seiko is staging an exhibition of the under-known Bay Area artist Ariel Parkinson. Working in tandem with the Berkeley Bunch and the Beat poets, Parkinson built up an oeuvre that was equal parts surreal and grotesque. Red Foxes (ca. 1994) is a menagerie of vulpine specters in red and purple hues, while George’s Wife (1980) is a semi-abstract landscape of swirling forms in which animalistic faces seem to emerge.'