The works of Nives Kavuric-Kurtovic now at...

SAN DIEGO —  The works of Nives Kavuric-Kurtovic now at the Anuska Galerie (2400 Kettner Blvd.) have a European look. The drawing, which hearkens back to the Renaissance in character, is academically elegant, as is the overall facture of the works despite the obvious modernity of their mixed-media components and the contemporary distortions of their figurative idiom.

Many viewers will respond positively to the artist’s basic conservatism. Many others, however, will be put off by what they will perceive as the decadence of traditional values, enervation and a disinclination to take chances. The traditional skills of Nives K-K (as she signs herself) mitigate the nightmarishness of her Middle European vision of being.

Her special interest is women, in symbolic, representational form, usually grotesquely distorted. Facial features slip to one side, eyes converge, breasts shrivel, stomachs bloat and buttocks swell. Invariably passive in character, her female figures pose like refugees from internment camps or medical experimentation laboratories.

Nives accentuates the somberness of her vision through the use of a very limited palette of earth tones. An unexpected group of abstract black, red, green and white forms in an immense and complex work entitled “The Scroll of Life,” covering two walls in the large gallery, is so unexpected that it seems like a cry of joy.

The artist has commented that the poles of her bleak vision are Eros and Thanatos, Love and Death. Her favorite writers are, appropriately, Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett. Her despair, however, is passive rather than affirmative.

Such an exhibition performs an educational function in our community, reminding us that there are worlds of art out there other than that of North America and Western Europe. While visual language, the language of forms and colors, is generally more accessible than the language of words, it is nevertheless alien.

The exhibition continues through June 27.

Rogue Gallery (3805 Ray St.) has been in business for about a year, an annex of Rogue Graphics, a framing shop. It’s in an out-of-the-way location, but it’s worth a visit. The space is well-lighted.

The present exhibition is an invitational drawing show that includes the works of nine San Diego artists. Overall the quality is good. Nothing’s included that anyone should be ashamed of.

Tom Driscoll, one of the most interesting of San Diego’s under-appreciated artists, is represented by two handsome, abstract drawings in two colors and a third drawing that could be a study for one of his remarkable plastic foam wall sculptures.

Veteran artist Richard Allen Morris is represented by a group of skillfully executed, often humorous, small drawings; Ramsez Noriega by more somber pen and ink drawings.

Eugenie Geb has a formidable command of the graphite medium, but she weakens her work through a tendency toward cuteness in her imagery.

Allan Morrow exhibits the sure hand of a skilled artist in his abstract, high-key color landscapes, but tends toward decorativeness.

Joan Carter’s night landscape of automobile traffic in an urban setting is a visual tour de force presenting at least two different perspectives at the same time and conveying a sense of speed. Two other works from the same series, entitled “Night Lights,” however, lack any special qualities.

The exhibition, which continues through May 24, also includes works by Stuart Burton, Bill Grigsby and John Moros.

The variations in quality at Spectrum Gallery (744 G St.) may be the wildest in town.

An exhibition of great beauty and professional competence can be followed by one that has little to recommend it.

Thure Stedt obviously makes his wood and stone sculptures with much love and care, but his forms, either abstract or figurative, are elegant cliches.

Ann Ahlswede’s acrylic paintings on canvas off the stretcher bars, as a group titled “Traveling Through America,” are depressing abstractions in muddy purples, blues, grays and reds.

The exhibition continues through May 24.

The Sculptor’s Guild of San Diego (Studio 36, Spanish Village in Balboa Park) is presenting a special juried exhibition of sculpted portraits. The juror was David Beck Brown, a well-known San Diego sculptor, writer and arts activist.

The works overall are very conservative attempts at simple, accurate representation. Standouts, because they violate this rule, are Rhoda Sugarman’s alabaster “The Gypsy,” Dorothy Yagoda’s alabaster “New Brother Ecstasy,” Rich Columbo’s untitled mixed-junk constructions and Max Stark’s powerful man’s face made of volcanic glass.

The exhibition continues through June 9.