The current exhibition at the Centro Cultural...

The current exhibition at the Centro Cultural de la Raza bears no title or professed theme, but five of the six artists represented reflect the same zeitgeist, or spirit of the age. Their works are infused with a sense of anxiety, alienation and fear.

Graciela Ovejero, Gail Werner, Hugo Sanchez, Victor Arballo and Catherine Rodriguez Luna all paint or draw in a representational style, abstracting or distorting their forms to a level of Primitivist simplicity or Expressionist fervor.

Ovejero’s paintings, the most forceful in the show, are surrounded by wall drawings that extend the disorienting, impassioned scenes into real space. In “She Lies in Abundance, Venus, Goddess of Beauty and Love,” the mythical subject is transformed into a bloated heap of pink, purple and green flesh. A plate of excised hearts rests at her feet, repast for another grotesque creature behind her. Through surreal disjunctions of scale, color and subject, Ovejero reinterprets traditional themes such as that of Venus, a solitary walking figure or the chaos of city life, giving one the orgiastic horror of Hieronymus Bosch, another the chilling tension of Edvard Munch. Her paintings have tremendous retinal as well as psychological impact.

Werner’s huge unstretched canvases of individuals in confounding or alienating situations also exude a powerful presence. “Out of the Darkness/Into the Labyrinth” shows a figure in transition between two worlds, that from which he emerged--represented by a dark hole with a protruding ladder--and that which he faces, two blood-red labyrinthine spirals in a swarm of brown and blue brush strokes. The scene is commanding in scale and ominous in palette. Other paintings by Werner, such as “Red Mountain,” embody a more pensive, mysterious ambiance.

Ironically, Roberto Salas, the only artist in the show whose work feels genuinely positive and upbeat, is embroiled in controversy. The specifications and scale drawing of his blue concrete “Victory Palm,” recommended by the Port District’s Public Art Advisory Committee for a Harbor Island site, show the piece to be both elegant and playful. However, the proposed arching palm, which will also function as a fountain, has been criticized by the public as objectionable on a variety of counts. All are easily dispelled by the plans and drawing on display here. The “Victory Palm” is a monument made for Southern California, a pseudo-organic obelisk perfectly suited to our city and our times.

The exhibition continues through July 12.

Ralph Diluzio’s “Cafe Portraits,” at the Metro Gallery (3746 6th Ave.) through July 25, are compelling contemporary portraits of isolation and loneliness. The images also possess the aura of a bygone era, suggested by their dusty, muted tones, broad, Manet-like brush strokes and the subjects’ plain apparel and hats. Diluzio’s slightly nostalgic attitude combines with the figures’ pensive, melancholy air to create a strong sense of atmosphere and place.

Most of the paintings, as well as the few woodcuts on display, frame a single figure seated before a small table, tilted up in the style of Cezanne to reveal its contents. The figures, their faces downturned or gazing absently into the middle distance, seem fixed in the cafe environment, immersed in pure thought or perhaps uninterrupted sorrow. None engage themselves with the material accouterments of the scene, and the titles of the works reinforce this attitude of withdrawal and restraint: “Eric Without Cigarettes,” “Richard With Fruit not Eating,” and “Self-Portrait not Drinking.”

Though Diluzio varies his format little throughout the series, he avoids redundancy by concentrating on particularities of the human psyche, as manifested in facial expressions and physical gesture. Even his acute perception, however, can’t enhance two paintings of a human-sized coffee cup and saltshaker, but it reaches poetic heights in “Two Dark Men,” a painting deviating from the frontal, single-figure format. The two men sit at a lunch counter that juts forward like a golden beam from the picture’s depths. Seen from a slightly elevated perspective, this streak unites the two figures in space, but they remain in separate realities, experiencing the same impenetrable solitude--whether in company or alone--that Edward Hopper depicted with such aching poignancy. Diluzio, as well, demonstrates a mastery at visualizing silence, resignation and defeat.