LA CIENEGA AREA

Work by KiKi Sammarcelli has the cheap, bright vitality of Tijuana souvenirs. While her abstracted sense of composition is evocative of Diebenkorn, her color sense is strictly Melrose; she lays it on in lurid, gooey slabs and she lays it on thick. This sort of mannered amateurishness is one of the hallmarks of Neo-Expressionism, a trend that grows more threadbare by the moment, but a trend that Sammarcelli exploits as capably as the rest of the club.

Her skills as an object-maker exceed her skills as a painter, and the most successfully resolved work in the show is a series of sculptural wall pieces called self-portraits. They’re strange little lozenge-shaped things, each one involving different colors and peculiar detailing. A bit farther down the wall is a a pair of heart-shaped objects sprouting nails. Like porcupines in protective coats of thorny quills, the hearts stand braced for an assault. (Hunsaker/Schlesinger, 812 N. La Cienega Blvd., to May 16.)