Wilshire Center

A 10-year overview of Carlos Almaraz’s paintings and works on paper tells us there’s an indelibly Latino component to Los Angeles with all the primitive, mystical, raunchy, street-wise spirituality that implies. In his capacity to log this mix with uncompromising artistry, Almaraz is unique.

The ponderous but nubile figuration in “Dunce’s Dream” or “The Clock Said Three” recalls Almaraz’s study of Mayan and other primitive ruins. The L.A. landscape is celebrated in the electric, museum-quality panel painting “Echo Park,” in a small car crash that explodes beyond its edges and in teetering downtown buildings fueled by animate energy. Over the years Almaraz has merged many sources to coin his own recognizable iconography, as in the little ships that stand for spirits and hover around a harlequin deity in the charming “All the Ships That Sailed Before Us” or the floating blue horses that transport animal men to dream worlds in “Bug Man.”

As usual, Almaraz exerts complete control over paint and pigments applied with lightning bold strokes in colors that run from the earthen tones of zarapes to neon pastels.

Remarkable new works show a darker, more brooding art than we’re used to from him. His usual whimsical sensuality is replaced by something stalking and dangerous (“City Cougar” and “The Green One”). Works such as “Philosophical Humor” and “Don’t Look Back” seem for the first time to consider not the myth of afterlife but the tangible presence of mortality. (Jan Turner Gallery, 8000 Melrose Ave., to March 4.)