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Now in his late 60s, Los Angeles artist Timothy Washington is enjoying his first solo museum exhibition. Associated with the 1960s assemblage movement in South L.A., Washington is a contemporary of David Hammons, Betye Saar, John Outterbridge and Noah Purifoy but has never quite achieved the same level of recognition.
In his joyous, eclectic exhibition at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, it's not hard to see why. Washington was and is a far more eccentric and mystical artist, traits that haven't always found favor in the mainstream gallery and museum world.
From his powerful early drawings on metal printing plates, to whimsical sculptures coated with a near overwhelming assortment of found objects, he has created curious, sometimes searing works that adhere to no logic but their own.
The drawings on metal, dating mostly from the late 1960s and early '70s, are the reverse of the etching process. Washington scraped away a layer of auto primer on the surface, effectively removing the ink rather than creating a groove for it to sit in.
They depict stolid, ghostly figures emerging from mysterious black grounds. Some are relatively naturalistic, such as in the tondo "1A," which Washington created in defiance and frustration upon receiving his draft card during the Vietnam War. Other figures have staring, round circles for eyes, giving them a slightly haunted look.
Sculptures from this time are even more bizarrely alien. "Love Thy Neighbor," from 1968, looks a bit like a "Star Wars" droid, an armless metal figure with a vaguely canine head and a torso studded with hundreds of nails.
The legs of "The Energy Source: First Warning," from 1970, tower...