When graphic art becomes high art

It's a habit of art-world insiders to look down at graphic art. Because it is done on commission, to meet a specific need, rather than born out of an artist's imagination for no reason other than that the artist is free to imagine, graphic art is viewed as second-rate.

But there are great graphic artists who make nuanced, evocative art. Luba Lukova's posters and illustrations have punch, and they are laced with such feeling that they often merit a second look. Her work doesn't wrestle with the classic riddles of high art. It is, as graphic art should be, strong and pithy but its messages are not always simple. The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University has mounted two Lukova exhibits, one in its main gallery on the Beacon Street campus, the other at Lesley's University Hall in Porter Square.

Lukova grew up in Bulgaria under a totalitarian regime and came to the United States in 1991. She is deeply attuned to human rights issues. The centerpiece of the first show is a series of social justice posters, wittily suspended from four umbrella-like structures that echo the image in Lukova's health care poster of an umbrella with ribs but no covering. That's a simple indictment of US health care policy. Her "Peace" poster is richer: It shows a dove comprised of the silhouettes of soldiers, missiles, and bomb blasts. This is an artist willing to convey complexity in polarizing issues.

Her images are deceptively simple: black-and-white, blocky, pared down, often with another color as background. Illustrations she has made for The New York Times hang around the social justice installation. Since no context is provided, we must take these provocative pieces for themselves. They read like fables. In one, a giant finger depresses the nozzle of a spray can, taking out three tiny cupids.

The Cambridge exhibit includes several works Lukova made for the book "Remembering the Women: Women's Stories From Scripture for Sundays and Festivals." I've never seen such a wonderfully graphic nativity scene: Lukova depicts Mary's spread-eagle legs pointing upward, the umbilical cord intact between her and the squawling Jesus at the top of the piece. These illustrations recall printmaker Leonard Baskin's gritty depictions of biblical figures; both artists cross the divide between fine and graphic art.

Sculptor Chris Frost tapped the 9-year-old inside him for his current show at Boston Sculptors Gallery. It's filled with castles and tree houses that evoke boyhood, but bear a grown-up sculptor's stamp. The exhibit begins with "Regalia," a crown hanging on one of several pegs, and a sword propped on the floor below. They look made out of cardboard, simple and rugged. In fact, they're bronze; Frost imbues the ephemeral toys with material solidity.

Likewise, the two-by-fours that make up the ladder to "Fort," a tree house, and the plywood-looking planks up in Frost's tree, built from wood, are cast aluminum. "Red Castle" is a 7-foot-tall castle complete with turrets, balconies, and courtyard, made out of concrete patio blocks. Frost's works glow with a child's delight, but they have heft and seriousness as well; they aptly convey art's origins in play.

Also at Boston Sculptors, Maggie Stark continues her examination of perception, using video, glass, and reflection. She asks the viewer whether you're looking into or looking at her work. Are they art objects, or lenses that shift one's understanding of self and other, depending on which you look through? Several pieces in the darkened gallery feature peepholes set in reflective black glass rectangles. "Loop I (Eye Series)" has a video of an eye staring back out of the hole. For "Compression," you look in and see a closed-circuit video of the back of your head; this setup heightens awareness of your own reflection in the black glass. Stark's pieces are more about the responses they set off in the viewer than they are about their own sleek but understated forms.

Amy Montali was a theater and dance artist before she turned to photography; her charged color photographs of women at Gallery Kayafas are specifically choreographed. These works are not portraits. In most of them we see the woman's body, but not her face. This gives the viewer the feeling of having caught an illicit glimpse.

The body becomes freighted with the viewer's projections. The scenes Montali constructs are specific but open-ended. In "Slip," we peer down a hallway, through a door ajar, into a bathroom where a woman bathes. It's her private moment; not seeing her face directly, we can't enter her world, but the artist has put us in touch with our own sense of privacy and its invasion.

Not all the works are as effective. "Champ," an image of a nude holding a bee, feels too choreographed, almost precious. It's when Montali holds the line between hiding and revelation that her art works best.