Show of Creative Promise : The juried ‘Emerging Perspectives of California Artists’ exhibit looks at the environment, toast, mortality and more.

Ajuried exhibit such as the Finegood Art Gallery’s “Emerging Perspectives of California Artists” is all about potential.

“Juried shows are the first rung on the ladder of visibility. A lot of artists just out of school submit to juried shows,” said Josine Ianco-Starrels, who judged this show with Scott Canty, curator of the Los Angeles City Cultural Affairs Department’s Satellite Galleries.

“You also get a variety in ages, from recent graduates to women raising kids and working on their art, to the retired. You only get as good a show as you find in the submissions.”

Ianco-Starrels and Canty found heartfelt, thought-provoking work in the submissions--from 32 artists throughout the state--of paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and mixed-media pieces.

The show not only presents the creative promise of each artist; but, due to the curators’ careful juxtaposition of artwork in the spacious gallery, it also gives the viewer an opportunity to contemplate with clarity a wide range of subject matter, style and technique.

“You have 32 different sensibilities that have to live together, not merely peacefully, but they must reinforce and enhance each other,” Ianco-Starrels said.

Photographer Hyman Solomon has chosen to capture the beauty of his local environment, Ferndell Park, in Impressionistic color prints such as “Reflections I.”

Jill Lachman is interested in reflection of a different sort. “A Lightbulb’s View,” ’The Assayer’s Office” and “A Reflection of Bodie” convey a sense of the once-vital town of Bodie, Calif., while illustrating that it was abandoned long ago. The objects in her color prints--a lone hanging light bulb or bottles in the assayer’s office--mirror other images of the ghost town today.

Monique Ozimkowski’s black-and-white photograph, “Cocktails & Toes,” displays a bare foot holding a cigarette between its toes, accompanied by an ashtray full of butts and a martini goblet. This “still life” conveys humor at first glance, then pathos.

Steven Peckman says he writes with light to make pictures. Placing photographic materials on the canvas, he uses light to create the image. His large, untitled monoprint flickers as if in flames, hiding a dark mystery. There might be a human figure in it, but then maybe it’s only in the eye of the beholder.

Among the sculptural works is Margaret Adachi’s obsessive, exacting “Toasted,” a representation of a huge piece of toast constructed with thousands of burnt matches. Her succulent “Heavy Ham” has been formed with bottle corks and newspaper.

“She has paid attention to materials and what they can do rhythmically to create a kind of texture, and lend themselves to an image,” Ianco-Starrels said.

Stuart Harwood’s sculpted heads, “Undone” and “Survivor?,” are formed from fiber and burnt plastic respectively. Resembling death masks, they depict the faces of tortured souls.

Carol Goldmark’s pencil drawings of flowers are not the standard pictures of glorious floral bouquets in bloom. Instead, she has chosen to reveal nature’s cycle of life and death through images of flowers in various states of decay.

Judith Bell seems to be pondering the potential for the Earth’s survival in her mushroom-shaped mixed-media piece, “Ground Zero.” Within its dark cloud sits a very tender landscape.

WHERE AND WHEN

Show: “Emerging Perspectives of California Artists.”

Where: Finegood Art Gallery, 22622 Vanowen St., West Hills.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, through July 26.

Call: (818) 587-3200.