A Passion for Public Art : Sculpture: Exhibition of works of George Trakas in San Diego reveals a tough urban candor that can give way to gentleness.

“A conflict and a love affair” is how George Trakas describes the relationship between humans and the Earth. After 20 years of making sculptures, drawings and primarily works of public art that address the meeting of organic and built forms, Trakas sounds quite sure of the passion and irreconcilability of that relationship.

“There’s always a certain sense of violation,” he said, referring to when humans intervene in natural processes.

But, in the case of his own artwork, it’s all in the name of giving access to the Earth in places and ways not previously available.

Trakas--speaking in the exhibition and work spaces of Quint/Krichman Projects, where a show of his drawings and sculptures opened Friday--himself embodies the split character of his enterprise. His tough, urban candor gives way frequently to a gentle, rhapsodic tone, just as the rigid, rusted steel elements in his sited sculptures join with sensuous, organic forms.

Since last July, the New York-based Trakas has been in residence off and on at Quint/Krichman Projects, where he has constructed a large stone, metal, glass and wood sculpture and completed numerous graphite and charcoal drawings. Despite nearly two decades of public art commissions around the world, including two projects in San Diego, this will be the artist’s first exhibition in a gallery setting.

“Most people contract me to build. I’m a builder,” Trakas said. “The drawings until now have been private.”

Trakas has completed works in public places in Denmark, France, Italy and the United States, and has been included in exhibitions at New York’s Guggenheim and Whitney museums. But he has had very little presence in the commercial sphere of the art world.

“I’m my own worst enemy,” he admitted. “I feel making art is a very private thing. I’d rather not get involved in a market situation. I’d rather just keep doing my art privately.”

Such protective insularity, however, hasn’t seemed to hurt Trakas’ career. Besides a steady stream of commissions from public agencies, his lifestyle (he’s a self-described nomad) is supported by grants and part-time teaching stints.

Never mind sending out slides and courting galleries, he said.

“The pieces do the work for me. People come to me and say, I just saw your piece here and I know a site you’ll love. Work generates work. That’s the way I like it and that’s what gives me such tremendous liberty.”

Wherever their location, Trakas’ public projects are, in his words, “rooted in the efforts and essence of each community.” In Thiers, France, Trakas constructed catwalks along the rocky, mossy banks of a narrow but active river, and slung a bridge across it to link one side of an abandoned valley of factories with the other. He said the locals have responded well to the “revamping of spirit” he visited upon their town.

“In a couple of days, I can get the fabric and feelings of a culture. It’s my craft. I can see connections in communities. To me, it’s effortless.”

Six years ago, he set to work on a triangular plot of land behind the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, in La Jolla. “Pacific Union,” finished in 1988, provides shelters, paths and benches to view the ocean across the street. It also “exhumes Ellen’s roots,” exposing part of the original staircase and stone walls that formed Ellen Browning Scripps’ lath house and gardener’s cottage on the site in the early years of this century.

Another local project, still in planning stages, promises to provide “an oasis in the middle of campus” for ever-expanding UC San Diego. Trakas, under commission from the Stuart Collection, has proposed to build three bridges and a path through a canyon near Interstate 5 and Gilman Drive.

Unlike the crisp forms and solid masses of his constructions, Trakas’ drawings are fluid and pulsing with organic life. Rhythms feel central here, rather than details--that’s because Trakas does these drawings of his works after they are completed. The drawings are not schematic, like plans, but shifting and sensual, like memories.

“The struggle of building a work is so harrowing and painful,” he said. “The drawings become a total catharsis. I can come back and do a drawing and it’s very sensual, being able to create with these materials and feel the land, the moss on a stone. It gets me back to the purest essence of my work, to embrace the earth and give access to it.”

* “George Trakas: Constructions, Wallpieces, Drawings” is on display at Quint/Krichman Projects, 5270-B Eastgate Mall. The show, accompanied by a well-illustrated catalogue, continues through March 7. Viewing hours are Saturday 11-3 and by appointment. For more information, call 454-3409.