“Thomas Johnson: New Work” is the vague...

“Thomas Johnson: New Work” is the vague title of a strong exhibition of photographs by a gifted artist at the Grossmont College Art Gallery. Johnson, “the Photography Department” at the College of Marin north of San Francisco, is visiting the San Diego area while on academic leave.

The images Johnson is now showing are ostensibly straightforward landscapes and urbanscapes. All possess, however, the mystery that we seek in true works of art. It is a mystery, moreover, not created by the artist through the manipulation of his medium, but found by him through his sensitivity to the extraordinary in the everyday world.

Thomas’ background is as a painter with an interest in formal issues, hence the compositional strength of his color photographs. We recognize most of his subjects with ease--directional signs and power-line poles along highways, vertical cement structures in a vineyard, a load of yellow grain or sand dumped on a gray road in the middle of a desert--but we must “read” his images with care to apprehend their beauty.

To minimize our human reliance on referential clues and emphasize the abstractness of his works, Johnson refuses to title them and even to identify them with respect to location. Suffice it to say that they were made in Ireland, England, Egypt and the American Southwest.

Whereas the American images are geometrically spare, the European images are profligately illusionistic. Favorite subjects of the artist are multiple reflections of crowded street scenes and reversed signage in shop windows, themselves full of curios and mannequins. These multilayered urban images are innocently surreal, neither invented in imitation of nor copied from dreams. Like Johnson’s rural scenes, they remind us that there is more magic in the life of everyday than we dream of.

With exhibitions of this quality, Grossmont College is regaining its importance as a visual arts venue after a period of regrettable inactivity. Thomas Johnson’s very beautiful exhibition of photographs continues through May 2.

Reflections Gallery (8371 La Mesa Blvd., La Mesa) is offering a new group show titled “Magic: Eventual Transformation.” The meaning is elusive, but you don’t have to understand it to appreciate the works exhibited.

The most exotic works are Brian Ransom’s music-making pots. The artist, who studied music and ceramics in Peru, has put what he learned there to good use. His ceramic, tripartite vessels, some of which, “Transformation IX” and “Transformation X,” for example, resemble circles of human figures, are constructed so that when water is introduced and the forms are moved they make haunting sounds.

Ransom also shows a group of pipes for blowing (like recorders) and a harp-like instrument made of clay, hide and koto strings.

Luis Bermudez, a master of texture and color whose works were recently included in the San Diego State University Art Gallery’s “Pacific Connections” exhibition, shows the most untraditionally beautiful works.

He is represented by one free-standing and four wall-oriented forms with crusty, volcanic surfaces combining organic, architectural and landscape references. They look like big sponges or seacoast rocks in earth and algae tones.

Gyongy Laky’s sculptural fiber works, in contrast, look aesthetically lightweight. The artist wraps small branches with brightly colored fabric ribbons and linear synthetic materials. While the abstract compositions have some interest, the giant “question mark” looks hokey.

Also included in the exhibition are two makers of jewelry. Kim Bass shows skillfully made and engaging enamel works and humorous necklaces and earrings using human leg forms. Thomas Mann makes pins composed of photographic images, plastic, copper, sterling silver and wire. His fetishistic, spooky pieces appeal especially to other artists. The exhibition continues through June 12.

Downtown at the new Espresso Gallery (500 4th Ave.) is a juried exhibition of “Handmade Paperworks.” Jurors were artist Ellen Phillips of the San Diego State University Art Department and arts writer Jan Jennings of the San Diego Tribune. Interested artists submitted slides in mid-March. The problem of judging from slides, of course, is that the photogeneity of works of art rather than their inherent qualities is the dominant criterion--especially for works in three dimensions or, as in this exhibition, for works in relief. Slides are a great convenience, but their relationship to real works of art is about equivalent to that of instant coffee to the real thing.

For first prize the jurors selected “Red/Black Series,” a molded face with barbed wire by Robin Blake Smith; for second, “Columnar Fire,” a very handsome relief with hieroglyphic markings on a yellow and gray field, and for third, “Pointed Objects No. 2,” a hanging construction made of gray vertical handmade paper forms, broken black twigs and shards of glass by David Zapf. This third is the finest work in the show because of its originality and combination of beauty with intimations of danger.

Other visitors may register their own preferences for a “popular choice cash award” of $100. The exhibition continues through May 15.

FO Luis Bermudez work “Rock Home,” left, and fetish necklace by Thomas Mann at Reflections Gallery.