2 Exhibits Give Impressions of the World Around Artists

There are two basic ways that artists convey their responses to the world around them. They act as observer/commentators and present their concerns in one way or another. Or, they engage the impact of experience upon their own lives and try to give expression to this. Two exhibitions in downtown San Diego exemplify these modes.

Aida Mancillas-Doyle’s delvings into spiritual and ecological experience are intensely personal, resulting in “Exiled Memories,” a passionate cycle of paintings and “sculptural books” provoked by a visit to Mission San Javier del Boc, in Arizona. There, the artist encountered the bizarre blend of American Indian attitudes and imported Christian values typical of the area.

The most distinct representation of the impact of that experience occurs in the text of certain of the “sculptural books:” hard bound books stiffened with wire, bordered with dried weeds, and painted white--through which some of the original text faintly appears. The artist’s text, which spans several books, tells a mystically tinged story of an old woman, of birds, of death, and, more generally, of the transformation of human experience from a nature-centered orientation to one marked by alienation between people and their world.

A different type of sculptural book marked by black paint is expressive in purely visual terms similar to bas relief. A page of one of these combines a tiny ladder, a nail, and a small photo of a harvest scene. On the opposite page is a collage representing a woman imprisoned. A sea shell and a feather share her space behind the metallic bars. Another book combines a reed flute, a bird’s skull, a sheaf of reeds, and a stylized image of two snakes intertwined.

The collaged books are impressive in both their formal originality and their expressive power. This is even more the case in the paintings that complete the presentation. Some of these works resonate with Chicano styles. In others, however, the references to medieval illuminated manuscripts implicit in the collaged books become explicit. The formal structure, in which the frame is divided into distinct zones of imagery, readily recalls Romanesque and early Gothic pictorial styles. Even the dryness of the pigments and the stone-like representation of the figures echo this bygone art.

With these allusions in the paintings, the entire experience of Mancillas-Doyle’s presentation expands into broader cultural and spiritual concerns, at least as these can pertain to questions of the human place in the universe, i.e. the meaning of life. Thus, there abides within the form of the work a clash of styles and imagery which mirrors its source: the artist’s observation of the clash of Native American culture with Christianity.

It’s not surprising that Mancillas-Doyle embraces the Romanesque and Gothic, which bear an odd harmony with the “primitivism” of the native American cultures that affected her. Those were days in our own past when “we” lived quite primitively, both materially and spiritually, and, thus, not much differently than “them.” That era in our history, which ended with the Renaissance, is called the Age of Faith.

In the more recent, “modern” age, there’s hardly any domain of experience more tenuously fulfilling than that of faith. With her art, Mancillas-Doyle reveals how she has been shaken up in the domain of faith. The result is like a door opened onto the deeper qualities of the lives we live, and a challenge to assess what we see there.

The exhibition continues at Sushi, 852 8th Ave., through May 27. Gallery hours are limited noon to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday.

At the nearby Sonic Arts Gallery, Houston-based artists Michael Galbreath and Jack Massing, working together as the Art Guise, have put together a spicy summary of their encounters with San Diego. Titled “Talking Pictures,” their effort reflects the observer/commentator mode of addressing the world outside of art and consists of 24 shiny metallic picture frames with junky tape recorders attached to them.

These are commercial products aimed at people who want to send a low fidelity “hello” to Aunt Betsy or Cousin Bob. The recorder mechanism is attached to the frame and plays its message when tilted forward.

The Art Guise use this bit of claptrap to produce cliched photographs of themselves on a golf course near the Coronado Bridge. They wear clothes purchased at a local thrift store and use a disposable camera to make the images. The recordings capture their musings on golf. Another group of photos portrays street people, accompanied by their verbal musings.

A third group consists of things found in the street: a beer can, match books, and blooms from some flower. Street sounds accompany these. The fourth group of image/sounds relates to events in the news at the time of the Art Guise visit here.

These “Talking Pictures” sit on shelves on the gallery walls. Motors drive brass rods which run behind the frames, alternately tipping them forward to release the recording. The result is a blaring cacophony that, at first, seems distracting, then amusing, then appropriately reflective of downtown life here or anywhere.

Like the environment that inspires it, the exhibition exuberantly indulges a flair for chaos and presents a real appreciation of the mixed bag of qualities of urban life.

The exhibition continues at Sonic Arts, 612 F St., through May 27. Hours are noon to 5 p.m., Thursday through Saturday.