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LOS ANGELES—What do our pets do when we’re gone? Are they flexing their creative capacities on an Etch A Sketch, sneaking forbidden treats, or indulging in their secret vices? These are the questions Alison Friend poses in her first U.S. solo exhibition at
Harman Projects, While You Were Out... Taking stylistic inspiration from the Old European Masters, Friend’s new series of oil paintings capture the clandestine lives of our precocious and loveable cats and dogs who smoke, drink, read, and eat when we’re not looking.

The serious posture the painted animals assume is droll and familiar, but …