Works Radiate Color, Message

Janet Cooling’s “Recent Paintings and Drawings” contains strong works that primarily illustrate the battle between wild animals and civilization.

Part of her continuing series titled “The Quiet Apocalypse,” these new works, which are on view at the David Zapf Gallery, vibrate with a vigor created by the artist’s ability to draw and her strong command of color combinations.

Nonetheless, the formalistic qualities of her art take a back seat to her political message. As Cooling explains in her statement, “this body of work is a visceral reminder of the fragile balance of the ecosystem and our responsibility toward maintaining it.”

Cooling’s most dramatic pieces portray the carnage that can occur when industry overtakes nature. “The Sound of Howling on the Top of the Mountain” is a particularly powerful painting depicting a leopard jumping through the air with a snake in its mouth and a cardinal riding on its back. In the background is a smoky industrial scene made more ominous by dark, twisted trees that crowd the work. The foreground is filled with dead fish and deer as well as a rabbit and a howling wolf.

Although the wildlife is a reminder of what can happen when industry supplants the wilderness, the vitality of the leopard illustrates not only that these animals are predators, but that their demise does not come not without a battle.

“The Sacred Scroll” is more allegorical and pessimistic. Stylized leaves on tree branches resemble missiles and bomber planes. Dead deer again litter the ground.

Not all of Cooling’s paintings are about death and struggle. Many of them portray animals in a more natural environment.

The term natural for Cooling, however, does not mean realistic. Utilizing bold colors that first came to be associated with the turn-of-the-century group of painters known as the Fauves, and incorporating dramatic gestures usually identified with painter Vincent Van Gogh, Cooling’s paintings and prismacolor drawings portray not only a stylized version of paradise but one in which the senses are heightened. The spring of a running cat in “Higher Ground” is made more vivid by the aura of colors that appear to emanate from it.

One only has to look at any one of her paintings to appreciate both the symbolism and the complexity of her work. In this exhibition, she gives us a better understanding of how each piece evolves by including several charcoal animal studies and a few variations of a particular theme. For example, three pieces--”My Beloved Has Gone Down Into His Garden,” “Walking Beside Still Water” and “In the Basin of the River Tigris”--depict the same image of a tiger surrounded by tropical plants. However, the repetition is not redundant because the stylization of the plants and the intensity of the colors vary somewhat in each.

Cooling’s animals are strong symbols that speak not only of nature’s demise but our own. Our growth is killing the environment, which in turn will affect us one day. At least there is hope in Cooling’s paintings.

* “Recent Paintings and Drawings” by J. L. Cooling is at the David Zapf Gallery through April 11. Hours are noon - 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and by appointment. The artist will discuss her work at the gallery at 2 p.m. April 4.

The premise behind the group exhibition “Inviting Diversity” at the San Diego Art Institute is twofold. The institute invited artists from assorted cultural backgrounds to exhibit a work, as well as to invite an artist of their choice to exhibit a work. Thus, the exhibition is about both diverse backgrounds and diverse styles.

Unfortunately, the result is an eclectic exhibition of 26 pieces in which cultural background is usually not apparent and quality is uneven. Also, the pairs of artists often aren’t even exhibited together, so one has to hunt to find who invited whom in order to examine one of the more intriguing aspects of the exhibition.

Adding to the frustration is the fact that there are works that are poorly crafted or unimaginative, and there are pieces that have been exhibited so many times before that they have become cliched.

Another problem is that strong works become diminished here because the adjoining pieces are so different. Examples of this problem are found in works such as Carol Nye’s photo “L.A. Chinatown--Subculture in Transition No 1,” which is next to a charcoal figure study by Ronnie Carruthers. Larry Dumlao’s black and white photo “Targeting Censorship” is next to Julieta Bartolini’s black and white photograph of a woman at a rally holding a sign that reads: “I am American of Mexican descent not a Chicano nor a turncoat. Stop illegal immigration. Save Calif. while we are still part of United States. No oil. No $. Only American.” This combination is fine, but on the other side of Dumlao’s work is a mixed-media drawing by Jihmye Collins, and the two do little to complement each other.

Nonetheless, there are a few works in the show that stand out. John Brodie’s “Dream Theatre” features a Chagall-like figure who floats above the primordial symbols of a sun, fire and snake. Ollie Zinn’s “Which Hunt” is a miniature mixed-media piece combining drawings and color photocopies that depict an arm holding an armchair on top of which rests a dog. The arm is emerging from a mountain range.

Annette Frei’s “Whirligig” is a lyrical watercolor that offers a quick impression of how life whizzes by. The center of the painting is a whirling depiction of the heavens and earth. Surrounding it is a border of stylized animals and people who allude to life. Simple scenes of a couple holding hands, a man shouting at the heavens, a person in bed and various fish, animals and buildings allude to love, anger, death and creation itself.

Elizabeth Woolrych’s clay sculpture is a beautiful and sensitively colored geometric piece that resembles a miniature menhir (a single standing monument from the stone age). And Reiko Campbell’s clay piece “Bone Hunters” is a whimsical creation of dogs or wolves in canoes filled to the brim with bones.

It’s too bad that, given the show’s good premise, the organizers couldn’t have better structured their presentation.

* “Inviting Diversity” is at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park through April 12. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday and 12:30 p.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.