Locally respected artist W. Hasse Wojtyla is...

Locally respected artist W. Hasse Wojtyla is exhibiting his most recent series of oil paintings and drawings at Spectrum Gallery (744 G St.), a membership organization exclusively for San Diego artists.

Wojtyla’s images are referentially abstract, distorted figures, often the victims of torture or murder, which have been inspired by Christian Scripture.

His works at Spectrum would be nearly indecipherable to lay people, even informed lay people, without the assistance of appropriate New Testament texts posted nearby. For example, a Prismacolor drawing shows a twisted, long-haired figure with a prominent belly, rather like a pregnant woman. From its mouth emerges a big bubble, like a cartoon balloon, containing a fanged creature. A pink form with a pig’s head leaps in the foreground. It’s a powerful, hallucinatory drawing, but it helps to know that it illustrates the story of Jesus chasing demons out of a man and into a herd of swine (Luke 8:27).

A related drawing, leaner in composition, is even more horrendous as the demon still has one limb stuck in the man’s throat. The images are emotional complements of the text but they do not supplant them.

Even more problematic is another drawing, “The Temptation of Jesus,” which would be utterly incomprehensible without the text (Luke 4:1). A small figure (Satan) offers what looks like a round stone (presumably the material world) to a large, leafy, vertical figure (presumably Jesus, the Tree of Life). It is a gratuitous exercise that neither illustrates nor contributes to the text.

The most impressive painting in the exhibit, “Casting Out the Demon,” is related to the story of Jesus curing a man in a synagogue (Mark 1:23). Figures struggle energetically in the center of a fierce composition of stacked and tightly interlocking rectangles in a rich palette of red, blue, gray, orange and black. This is a work of art whose fervor should move even the irreligious.

A large “Crucifixion,” however, and a cloying “Madonna of Sorrows” (incongruously radiating yellow light like sunshine) evince little more than the artist’s sincerity. That may be enough for religion but it is not enough for art.

The exhibit continues through March 1.

Natalie Bush Gallery (908 E St.) is showing a group of assemblages by Santa Barbara artist Randolph Sommer. Rather than works constructed of found materials in the tradition of George Herms and Ed Kienholz, they are mixed-media paintings. True, Sommer has used unusual materials such as garden stakes, twine, broken glass, crushed tin cans, a small tree branch and even a pitchfork (very sharp and very threatening), but they are all attached to canvas and painted in a very beautiful palette of nocturnal blues, purples and greens.

Two of these works are especially beautiful. The surfaces of “Incantational Threads” and “Distracted Spirits” are activated by delicate, lyrical pigment-penetrating scratchings.

“Which Window” is the strongest work in the show and the closest to authentic assemblage in the artist’s use of unaltered found materials, including distressed painted wood panels, a window frame, an old broom and hemp cord. It also contains a text, “my heart longs for open spaces, imagine” and its visual echoes, “hear,” “pen,” “image” and so forth.

The show continues through March 8.

Ronald Onorato, chief curator of the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, was this year’s juror of San Diego Art Institute’s Midwinter Award Show, open to all San Diego County artists.

Onorato has expressed an interest in figurative painting, new realism, photography and architecture, so he did not come to his task with any ostensible prejudices against what he might find among the works submitted. From 326 entries he accepted 61, just shy of 20%.

“I was actually surprised by the variety of media represented and found special strengths in painting and photography, which the exhibition reflects, I think,” said Onorato. “It was nice to discover things that I didn’t expect in the community, and I was intrigued by the use of humor, which I like but many artists find difficult.”

Even though the works exhibited are the best of the lot, the show is not remarkable for its quality. Some notable paintings are Steve Behar’s beach scenes, Scott Ford’s “Sand House” and R.K. Williams’ small landscape “My Friends Await Me,” a prize winner. All are well done and convey a sense of the environment, especially the light, in Southern California.

There are also appealing watercolors: figurative by George Mattson, landscape by Annette Paquet and floral by Bette L. Donavon.

Other prize winners were Christopher Statoff with a bronze titled “Sleep of Woman,” and Helen Redman with a painting titled “Poolside.”

The show continues through March 2.