It’s not surprising that this year’s “Small...

It’s not surprising that this year’s “Small Images” exhibit at Spanish Village Art Center in Balboa Park is the strongest in the annual show’s 12 years.

It is also, mercifully for the viewer, not so crowded as usual.

The juror was Mark-Elliott Lugo, himself an artist of distinction, whose works were included in the still-unsurpassed “San Diego Exhibition” at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in 1985. He was until recently the art critic for the San Diego Tribune.

Lugo selected 112 works from 525 entries. The sole requirement was that a work be no larger than 10 inches in any dimension.

The show is largely a regional survey in miniature of works by artists not represented by the area’s handful of major galleries.

Some artists, such as Ethel Greene, George Matson and Jean Swiggett, are veterans with distinguished reputations. Others, such as Richard Allen Morris, Florence Cohen and W. Haase Wojtyla, are also hors concours, but their works contribute a certain flair to the exhibit.

The show is also an exercise in multimedia madness. Oil, watercolor, clay, bronze, graphite, etching and photography are included among traditional materials and techniques. But so are fuzz and spackling paste, as well as other exotic (perhaps even unmentionable) substances.

Among the outstanding younger artists is Ron Williams, whose mordant, prize-winning construction “Putting Art to Rest” includes a miniature toilet. Other prize-winners with notable works were Thomas Driscoll and Allan Morrow, both masters at making reductive but evocative statements. Paper-maker Bob Simpson also received an award for a very beautiful, multilayered abstract composition.

One of the pleasures of such exhibitions is second-guessing the juror. Jim Kacirk is a real find for his monotypes “Close-Up” and “Female Form.” It is always a pleasure to see the boldly composed landscapes of Holly Weston. J. Adams’ mixed-media “Daphne, Apollo’s First Love” and “Apollo Stood Amazed” are peculiarly attractive. The photographs of Chuck Kimball, Nanessence and David Reutter have both professional and aesthetic authority. The abstract sculptures of John DeWitt Clark (whose style wandered in a recent San Diego Art Institute show) are exceptional for their combined elegance and strength in the small format. Rob Chase’s etching “Parsons Beach Road” and Jeannette Brent’s “Crystal Bottle” are masterpieces of intimacy: big art in small formats.

A few works are frivolous. Some others are unprofessionally presented (with badly cut mats and cheap frames, for example). But overall, the visual pleasure these works gives is inversely proportional to their dimensions.

The show continues through February.

Art Site (921 E St.) is offering a group show by artists associated with the gallery.

The show’s outstanding work is an architectonically masterful glass-topped table by Fred Lanz and Robert Niedringhaus.

David Eidenmiller’s photographs are as technically competent and poetic as Ira Current’s.

Frank Drogon’s lovely abstract watercolor “Distant Places” makes us realize that little else in the exhibit is of professional caliber.

The show continues through Feb. 21. The gallery will close for one week for renovation and reopen March 1.

“Western Artist Round-Up” at Standard Brands Art Corner Gallery (939 16th St.) is possibly the weakest exhibition yet to appear in that space.

On view are portraits of dour Indians in tribal costume against backgrounds of airliners and skyscrapers by Ramona Wolfe; a modest group of modest paintings by Larry Bressler, and amateurish landscapes by Mildred Sharpe.

The three disparate bodies of work by autodidact Lois Simmons reveal, not versatility, but an absence of mature artistic vision. Her works demonstrate convincingly that her stated skepticism of formal, professional instruction is misplaced.

This disappointing exhibit continues through March 8.