La Cienega Area

Alas, contemporary art viewed as daring or exquisitely refined in Japan often tends to seem rather passive and low-key to Western eyes. Toko Shinoda, a National Living Treasure in her late ‘70s, combines the lineaments of traditional ink painting with gentled elements of Abstract Expressionism in her color lithographs. Touched up with an elegantly placed brush stroke or two of paint, they allude fleetingly to natural forms--grasses and water droplets--while retaining a spare, abstract look. Strokes of velvety black ink sometimes change course to skim lightly over the paper in a watery wash or trail off into wispy strands.

Keiko Kasai is a younger Japanese artist who now lives in Los Angeles. She makes long, narrow, self-effacing wood sculptures, some of which hang from ropes, and serene black granite free-standing works. “Offering,” a wood piece slung in a rope dangling from the ceiling, has a smooth side striped by gently incised lines; the other side is broken into a range of faceted, low-lying “hills.” In “Moonpond,” Kasai’s most distinctive piece, a polished oval rock with roughened markings presides over two flat irregular sheets of granite. A polished circular area becomes a lustrous, reflecting pond. (Tokoro Gallery, 320 N. Robertson Blvd., to Dec. 31.)