EXHIBIT SHOWS RURAL BEAUTY INSIDE COUNTY

The fragile beauty of Orange County’s rural landscape, from its sands and ocean to its tangled valleys and hills, is the focus of a new exhibit at the Art Angles Gallery in Orange.

“We all think this region is something special with its own wonderful and lovely quality. We feel passionate about it and think it is threatened by modern influences everywhere,” says Joachim Smith, the curator of the “Sense of Place” show, which continues until April 17.

Smith and 10 other local artists have contributed watercolors, oils, acrylics, drawings, and sculpture that offer scenes idyllic enough to satisfy any wistful naturalist.

But not all the pieces are so dreamy. A few, especially Kyoko Asano’s detailed paintings of flotsam and other garbage littering the Bolsa Chica State Beach, are cautionary in their documentation of how the local environment has changed as more people have settled here.

That’s just how Smith and the other artists want it. Although the exhibit is meant primarily as a record of the region’s glory, it also tries to remind visitors that conservation is the only way to fight problems resulting from litter to ugly urban sprawl.

“I don’t think the art is political in the sense that it directly tells people that there’s a threat” to the environment, said the 57-year-old Smith, who lives and paints in a brushy area of Carbon Canyon in the northern county. “Most of the pieces just show how beautiful the area is and, we think, get people thinking about how important it is to have a protective attitude. . . . With more than two million people (in the county), we need that type of attitude.”

Smith, one of the area’s more noted artists and a wildlife activist who has fought for statewide conservation, has looked forward to such a show for several years. When gallery owner Gerrie Schusterman agreed it was a timely idea, she and Smith asked some of the area’s better-known artists--including Don Hendricks, George James, Connie Zehr, Suvan Geer and Bob Schmid--to participate.

Hendricks, whose brilliantly colored washes depict the many looks of Silverado Canyon in the southern part of the county where he has lived for several years, saw the exhibit as an opportunity to show his “deep love for the place” and provide a testament to its “subtle beauty.”

“I often think that many people overlook much of what we have out here, or, if they don’t exactly overlook it, they take it for granted,” said Hendricks, 39. “If you take it for granted, you run the risk of abusing it, especially if you are a newcomer who has not lived with it all your life.”

Asano, 53, a longtime Huntington Beach resident, also believes the show has an optimistic point of view, despite its intrinsic worries about the present and future.

“I see the changes (in the environment) but don’t want to complain about them because that is negative,” she explained. “Instead of protesting, we must raise the landscape to a (revered) level through our artwork. Only a positive response is productive.”

Despite her optimism, Asano’s large canvases are the exhibit’s most disturbing. Finely detailed, they show expanses of powdered sand marred by cluttered discards. Crumpled cigarette packs, rusting “smiling face” buttons, milk cartons and soft drink cans invade the pristine beachfront.

Most of the other works are more idealized. Smith’s own watercolors show a close-up world of flowers, weeds, dried leaves and lizards basking comfortably in a serene world framed by distant hills. Connie Zehr’s sculpture of a graceful dolphin giving birth honors the natural order of things.

To present a more comprehensive view of the county, Smith and Schusterman also included a few paintings with urban themes. George James’ and Jeff Horn’s atmospheric works settle on street scenes throughout Orange County--many, including James’ watercolor of the Mesa Theater in Costa Mesa, are easily recognized--and, with their crowded imagery of cars and architecture, stand as contrast to the other pieces.

Although they don’t necessarily convey Smith’s dramatic opinion that there is “deterioration and crumbling in the cities,” Schusterman believes many have a quality of foreboding not apparent in the other paintings.

“I especially get that feeling with Horn’s paintings; there’s a darkness (and) a kind of brooding there,” she said. “Having them gives this show a kind of completeness, I think, and is more reflective of the entire county.”

They also give the exhibit a realistic, practical edge, Hendricks said. “People have to make environments for themselves (out of nature) and most people live in cities or towns,” he explained. “We can’t always let nature have its way, but we have to be careful whenever we change it.”