In the mood for some deep artistic...

In the mood for some deep artistic thinking today? Then grab your black turtleneck and head over to the Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro.

There you’ll find a unique collection of artwork that covers the media spectrum from photographs to VCRs, and from canvas to glass, steel and wood. There are even a few exhibits that invite direct audience participation.

It’s all part of the center’s second annual members exhibition, “On Site at the Gate,” which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, through July 12, at the Gate Gallery at 3601 Gaffey St. in San Pedro.

The free exhibit features 27 works by eight up-and-coming artists from around Southern California. The artists were chosen from among 137 entries by guest jurist Thomas Solomon, owner of Thomas Solomon’s Garage Gallery in Los Angeles. Solomon made his selections by viewing slides sent in by the 137 applicants.

“Although slides are difficult in many respects to the understanding and experience of an artwork, I have chosen a wide range, related by conceptual ideas, as well as by form and nature,” Solomon said.

The range is indeed wide. The first work in the exhibit isn’t even in the gallery; it’s out on the front lawn and resembles a flying saucer. Titled “Big Pill,” creator Ted Rosenthal calls it a “womb-like sanctuary” that seats four adults comfortably.

“It’s from one of my earliest, recurring childhood dreams of having my own flying saucer,” he said.

Inside, the exhibit continues with image-distorting pinhole photography by Linda Lee and shadowy black-and-white photos by Annie Appel. Both photographers go for a mystical quality to their work. Lee uses photographic technique to achieve this, whereas Appel distorts her images by contorting her subjects.

God and religion are dealt with in Art Domantay’s small sculptural boxes, and contemporary fashion is the subject of Paul Tzanetopoulos’ canvases of stretched denim and neon patches. Kristen Morse uses clothing in her exhibit to create a bond between material, memory and self. And Timothy Nolan uses an elaborate setup of vertical Venetian blinds and mirrors across an entire wall to distort reality.

Joseph Santarromana provides the finale with his “The Little House That I Live In,” a narrow hallway made of two-by-fours lined with TV screens with the images seeming to work off each other across the hall. Walking down this visual corridor among the images offers a slightly unnerving experience.

After all of these bizarre visual encounters, perhaps it would be better to save the peaceful sanctuary of Ted Rosenthal’s “Big Pill” for last.