ART : A Creative Mix : Platt Gallery is showcasing four artists of wide-ranging ages whose art spans several mediums and styles--but it works.

“4 Directions,” at the University of Judaism’s Platt Gallery, presents the work of four artists from three generations brought together by two curators who are painters themselves. To add to the mix, each of the artists works in different mediums.

Austrian-born octogenarian Oscar Van Young, whose art studies began in Russia in 1918, is an oil painter. Hy Farber, 71, started making his wood sculptures only three years ago, after his retirement as a graphic and architectural designer.

Ilee Kaplan, 39, creates woodcut prints using a technique that she says is not considerably different from that of the 15th-Century Germans. Jack Zoltak, 40, paints, but he also makes drawings, based on his sketches and photographs, that have a highly graphic quality about them.

Even the painter-curators, University of Judaism Fine Arts Council members David Rose and Mort Lampert, work in different styles. Rose is a figurative painter. Lampert prefers abstraction.

However, Rose and Lampert have managed to gather in harmony a sampling of each artist’s thought-provoking work.

The show begins not in the gallery, but inside the main entrance to the university, where Farber’s eight-foot-tall laminated plywood “The Sumo” greets everyone as they come through the door. This wrestler is poised for action.

“It shows so much force and energy and power,” Rose said. “Hy Farber was a graphic designer working with great precision, absolute definition. He always expressed other people’s ideas. He wanted to express himself.”

Also in the lobby are the massive but elegant “Lion of Judah” and “The Bird.” The gallery holds three of his small sculptures, including “Security,” a mother and child made out of teakwood.

“I chose to work in wood because it is warm like the blood that flows through all living things,” Farber said in his artist’s statement. “I chose to do recognizable however stylized images of creatures and men because I had grown weary of abstraction in art. I wanted people to have a direct and uncomplicated experience of their own humanity when they observed my sculptures.”

Kaplan’s arresting woodcuts speak to the Angst in people’s lives. For her “Nightlife” series, she staged her own bar scene, gathering friends to sit in a restaurant and pretend that they were at a bar, while a photographer took pictures. A triptych of thoroughly modern, forlorn people resulted from that session.

Bold colors and dramatic lines are important elements in the power of Kaplan’s prints. She uses them with added emphasis in her intriguing portraits of “Deb in Red Stockings” (1991) and “Jane Playing Cards” (1985). Two woodcuts from her series “Parents and Children” reflect her feelings about parenting and parent-child relationships.

Zoltak’s triptych, “Alterations,” pays homage to his deceased father. In one section is the artist’s contemporary portrait of his father and another face--perhaps the artist himself. The two other sections depict a vision of his father’s tailoring shop and a likeness of him as a young man based on his Polish passport photo.

“The triptych of my father, done shortly after he passed away, was drawn and painted from the ‘inside, out,’ ” Zoltak said in his artist’s statement.

His other work in the show, the drawings “Hands” and “Woman and Blue Cup,” and the paintings “The Brown Hat” and “The Green Jacket,” are part of his “Farmers Market” series. Derived from sketches and photographs he made at the farmers market, they communicate a sense of the local color there.

Van Young grew up in a house in Vienna with a grandfather whose friends included composers Gustav Mahler and Giacomo Puccini, and author Arthur Schnitzler. The music that was always in his house left a permanent impression on him, Lampert said.

“He listened to music while he painted, and that affected the quality of his palette,” he added.

Van Young came to Los Angeles in 1940 with his wife, painter Loli Vann, after spending the 1920s and ‘30s in Chicago. His paintings in this show date to the late ‘30s, including the exceptionally poignant “Laundresses (No. 1).” Here he captures the weight of two black women’s lives with authenticity and compassion.

Where and When What: “4 Directions” at the University of Judaism’s Platt Gallery, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Bel-Air. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, until 2 p.m. Fridays through Jan. 31. Price: Free admission. Call: (310) 476-9777, Ext. 276.