Connecting Spirit and Matter : L.A.’s Sabina Ott, opening a gallery show in Santa Monica, finds a metaphor in roses that aren’t always beautiful

In a 1989 show at New York’s Charles Cowles Gallery, Sabina Ott began her series of encaustic (wax) paintings on the theme “Disappearance and Return” with a body of works examining narcissism and the absence of self. Now, returning to her hometown of Los Angeles with a show of the same title at Santa Monica’s Pence Gallery, Ott fills that absence by using the metaphor of the rose as “the synthesis between the spiritual and material worlds.”

In her paintings, Ott says, the rose acts as a metaphor for the human body. But unlike the traditional image, Ott’s layered roses are not always beautiful. One work, for instance, features blue roses on a flesh-toned background to represent bruises on skin.

“Each painting focuses on using the rose as a different aspect of the body,” says Ott, 35, who has been working with wax since 1987. Conceptual art, she says, has had a heavy influence on her work.

“So much of art is about ideas; I set up a conceptual skeleton and then use the paint and materials to flesh it out. Through these paintings I set up a vocabulary, almost like a code with an alphabet--I want the work to pose that question of ‘How do these works relate to each other?’ It’s very much about multiple readings, and one painting really should not be taken on its own without looking at the rest of the work.”

As an example of how her pieces interrelate, Ott pointed out a four-panel work in which each of the small scenes depicted shows up later in a larger work.

“The piece operates as a kind of legend or map . . . giving you the beginnings of the alphabet” for the rest of the works, says Ott, an active member of the L.A. Coalition for Freedom of Expression who was featured this summer in a two-person show at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery.

As for the wax, Ott says she likes the “mutability” of the medium and the fact that it “complicates” her work.

“I started with strictly paint, but gradually I outgrew that way of looking at things. I needed a new and more complex way of setting up questions in the work,” she says.

THE SCENE

After more than a year of work, Kent Twitchell has completed his 4,000-square-foot L.A. Marathon Mural along the wall of the northbound San Diego Freeway, between Century and Manchester boulevards.

The mural depicts 26 runners, ranging from four-time Olympian Rod Dixon of New Zealand to novice runner John Dolan of Sierra Madre. It “extracts the essence of the marathon” by picking out a handful of runners from the “sea of thousands,” Twitchell says.

Plans for Twitchell’s second L.A. Marathon Mural, which will take up 7,700 square feet along the westbound Santa Monica Freeway between National and Overland boulevards, are already in progress.

More than $1 million has been raised to date for Harvey Gantt’s North Carolina U.S. Senate campaign by the sale of lithographs by nine noted artists, including Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell and Ed Ruscha. The prints are on view at Santa Monica’s James Corcoran and Dorothy Goldeen galleries and at Melrose Avenue’s Gemini G.E.L.

The Los Angeles-based service organization Arts Inc. is updating and expanding its directory of nonprofit arts organizations in Los Angeles County and has sent census forms out to about 400 organizations.

The deadline for organizations to return the questionnaire is Nov. 9, and copies of the new directory will be available in early 1991.

OVERHEARD

“Where did all these young, new artists come from? I can remember when Jill Geigerich was the only ‘new’ artist who got any attention. Now it seems half the galleries are filled with ‘new’ artists.” --A middle-aged man, during a Saturday afternoon trek around Santa Monica galleries.

CURRENTS

The Art Dealers Assn. of America and its member galleries have raised $51,150 for the legal defense fund of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, and the association is urging other arts groups to mount their own fund-raising campaigns for the center.

The center and its director, Dennis Barrie, were acquitted on obscenity charges connected with the center’s showing of “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment,” but accrued more than $300,000 in legal defense fees.

“We have won the battle and reaffirmed our First Amendment rights, but the drain on our finances jeopardizes the future of the arts center,” said director Barrie, who noted that the ADDA’s gift and challenge to other groups would help ensure the future of the center.

DEBUTS

West German-born figurative painter Sara Rossberg has her first U.S. gallery show at Beverly Hills’ Louis Newman Galleries through Nov. 8. Based in London, Rossberg has shown extensively in European galleries and has been featured in international art fairs in Basel, Cologne, Los Angeles, Dusseldorf and Madrid.

Sculptor Vincent Shine has his first exhibition in Los Angeles at Santa Monica’s Michael Kohn Gallery through Dec. 1. Shine, whose plastic sculptures depict various forms of plant life, has previously had solo shows in Chicago, New York and Vienna.

HAPPENING

The Craft & Folk Art Museum’s 1990 International Festival of Masks will be held today in Hancock County Park (southwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Curson Avenue). The free festivities begin at 11 a.m. with an opening ceremony and mask procession, and continue until dusk with ongoing performances and exhibits. Information: (213) 937-5544.

To start off what has been proclaimed by Mayor Tom Bradley as “L.A. Artcore Week,” the downtown gallery today will host “A Day in the Studio”--a series of studio tours with local artists including sculptor Seiji Kunishima from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The gallery will then conclude its festivities next Sunday with the Autumn Art Festival dinner at the L.A. State and County Arboretum in Arcadia, which will include auctions of works by gallery artists and others. That event begins at 2:30 p.m. and will include the awarding of the annual L.A. Artcore Award to L.A. City Councilman Joel Wachs. Information: (213) 617-3274.

Long Beach Museum of Art offers several free community art activities on Saturday, ranging from book art and papermaking workshops to a screening of the video “Anima.” The event will be held at the museum from noon to 4 p.m. Information: (213) 439-2119.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is offering a 45-minute slide-lecture on “The Fauve Landscape” daily through Dec. 30 (except Saturday and Nov. 15). All screenings are at noon. Information: (213) 857-6000.

DEADLINES

Nov. 15 is the deadline for the annual Rome Prize Fellowship Competition of the American Academy in Rome. The academy offers one-year fellowships in painting, sculpture and other visual arts that include a $7,000 stipend, European travel and supply allowances and most room and board. Information: (212) 517-4200. . . . Tuesday is the deadline for entries for the L.A. Photography Center’s 1990 Photography Contest, which will be juried by Suzy Kerr, director of the L.A. Center for Photographic Studies. Winning entries will go on view at the center Dec. 11. Information: (213) 383-7342.

ETC.

Joan Hugo has been appointed West Coast editor of the monthly art magazine New Art Examiner. Hugo, a recent winner of a VESTA Award for journalism from the Woman’s Building, will replace Richard Smith, who has been California editor since the magazine first opened its West Coast bureau in 1989. . . . The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has extended viewing hours for the exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the Annenberg collection. Tickets are now available for viewing at 6, 7 and 8 p.m. on Saturday and next Sunday, and on Nov. 10-11.