The darker elements of the human spirit...

The darker elements of the human spirit are represented in an exhibition of sculpture and drawings by five artists at the South Bay Contemporary Museum of Art for the next three weeks.

The works deal with such elements as pain, fear, death and suicide, with each artist addressing the issues in profoundly different ways. Although viewers at first may find the exhibition depressing and gruesome, the purpose of the art is to instruct.

“We feel this art brings these dark issues into the light in a positive way,” said Jo Ann Gaines of the South Bay Contemporary. “This art lets people recognize what these dark elements are and allows them to come to grips with these elements.”

Mary Cecile Gee’s exhibit, “Crossing Over,” was born of her desire to come to grips with the death of her father. The graphite-and-charcoal drawings she displays are just a fraction of the 130 drawings she produced over a four-month period.

In an effort to allow her spontaneous and intuitive nature to dominate her intellect, Gee said she set conditions for herself--she produced them within a time limit and decided not to discard any drawing. The result is a collection of deathly images, at times crudely drawn but not terrifying, grotesque or fearsome. The images instead invoke a sense of finality and loss in an almost peaceful way.

This contrasts with the gruesome, disturbing sculpted figures produced by Karen Coburn and Jacquline Hurlbert. Coburn’s exhibit, “Sins of the Mind,” is a collection of six sculptures inspired by Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” The figures represent the sins of the mind--suicide, sorcery, hypocrisy, evil, envy and gluttony--with each sculpture captioned by a passage from Dante’s work.

Hurlbert’s “Demons in Corners” is a collection of sculpted ceramic wall hangings, many of which are designed to hang in a corner. The exhibit’s inspiration was an Asian belief that demons, which can travel only in straight lines in the spirit world, emerge as “fear” into our world where two lines, such as those formed by two walls, meet at right angles. Hurlbert’s twisted, grotesque figures seem to struggle out of the corners to escape the clutches of fear and darkness.

The fourth exhibit deals with teen-age suicide through a combination of drawings and narrative by writer Robert Graff and artist Tommy Berg. “WIINDOWS: Unspoken words reported accurately by an observer who wasn’t there” takes the form of a comic book narrated by a suicidal teen trapped in a bare room with no way out. The story and its outcome are depressing, but it delivers a powerful message: Suicidal teens can be helped if someone reaches out to communicate with them.

In coordination with the Graff/Berg exhibit, the museum will conduct public discussions of teen suicide with Berg, Graff and Coburn, plus three psychiatrists and a counselor at 7 p.m. Thursday and Dec. 12.

“We decided to hold the conversations due to the comic’s controversial nature,” Gaines said. “The problem of teen suicide is too often shunned. It’s very important to bring it out in the open and talk about it.”