SIGHTS AROUND TOWN : Black Presence : Yvette Sutton’s ‘1% Wall’ at the Oxnard Library depicts African-American contributions to the community.

Demographically speaking, the African-American population in Ventura County is minute compared to that of the metropolis to the south. Small in terms of numbers, perhaps, but community presence is another matter.

Such is the premise of Yvette Sutton’s suitably named “1% Wall,” which is connected to Black History Month and now up at the Oxnard Library.

The black population of the county was roughly 1% when Sutton moved to the area in 1980. According to the 1990 census, that figure has risen closer to 2%.

Sutton’s goal is to celebrate the existence and contributions of African-Americans to the community, in the form of a large-scale collage on three 8-by-12-foot panels.

Helped along by a grant from the Ventura Arts Council, Sutton consulted local African-Americans to gather photographs and tidbits of oral history. She riffled through newspaper clippings and photocopied all of her findings.

The result is a scrapbook-like presentation that is dramatic in its density, humble in artistic means and bursting at the seams with good intentions.

In tandem with Sutton’s display, Oxnard resident Earl J. Carter has written a booklet on the history of African-Americans in the area, enlarged for easy reading.

Included in his comprehensive accounting is the infamous tale of Lucy Hicks, the prominent Oxnard resident in the pre-World War II years whose tidy income came from her popular houses of ill repute. Hicks’ eventual downfall stemmed from a startling revelation not unlike a certain scene in “The Crying Game.”

Usable Art

Over at Ventura College’s Gallery 2, the African-American theme continues with San Francisco-based furniture designer Cheryl Riley’s show, “World Culture Influences in Decorative Art.”

Riley craftily fuses contrasting elements from the ethnic arts to post-modern eclecticism. These are interior decorating objects-- lamps, tables, mirrors--to be both used and contemplated.

The “Tribal Wand Table Lamp” involves a bead-encrusted shaft, out of which erupts a Zulu hairdo of fiber optic strands. With their irregular, zig-zag patterns, Riley’s Zulu tables fudge the line between tribal evocations and expressionistic design.

And therein lies an implicit theme: the age-old symbiotic relationship between the ethnic arts and the modern art impulse, from Picasso forward through the 20th Century.

Of particular interest is her “Coin Encrusted Tudor Table,” a lavish, copper-studded mass that resembles a treasure chest. Beyond the glittering surface, though, the subtext has to do with the practice of Nigerians using British coins in decorative contexts, foiling colonial attempts to guide the economy.

With form-chasing-function intent, Riley creates useful decor objects with a distinctly Afro-centric character, but also a ‘90s sense of both multiculturalism and subtle irony.

Over at the college’s New Media Gallery, San Francisco artist Jessica Dunne shows her moodily enigmatic monotypes. She explains in a statement that these images come from her place of residence, where the Sunset district meets the Pacific Ocean.

From the evidence here, Dunne enjoys coming out at night, dwelling on the dry, romantic desolation of empty streets. Her nocturnal scenes tend to be blanketed in fog and a kind of existential gloom.

But there is also a stark beauty that arises from the uneven dispersal of light. “Urban Orchard” and “Synchronized Lights” are about the stateliness of lampposts at night, creating rhythm in the compositions.

Ambiguous hints of urban tension crop up, via the reflexive suggestion of alarm where a police car appears. The red light of a police car tucked into the scenery of “The Accursed Rock, Rising” works as a point of friction in an otherwise innocuous urbanscape.

In the light of day, Dunne adopts a distinctly Edward Hopper-esque appreciation of ominous shadows-- like sinister phantoms--and elliptically cropped scenes of rooftops and window views.

A parched lyricism and also queasiness bubble beneath Dunne’s surfaces. Both qualities feed the end result.

Flora in Extremis

Jennie Snyder, a watercolorist who recently took first place in the annual Gold Coast Watercolor Society show at the Doubletree, exhibits a healthy selection of her work at Ventura City Hall.

Snyder is a watercolorist with impressive facility and creative stamp in a medium that is too often the stuff of Sunday painters. This show is split roughly between collage-like scenes of Americana-in-the-attic and exaggerated floral scenes that transcend mere visual pleasantry.

Snyder’s macro-close-up views of plants emphasize the idea of plants and their foliage as a thicket rather than a backdrop for blossoms.

These are not, pardon the pun, wallflower paintings. Leaves seem to burst forth and push outward on the picture plane, and sometimes spill over onto the frames. “The Orchard” has an almost photo-realist effect, with apples caught in just the right, veracious light.

Snyder finds new ways to bully the conventions of her medium, while not forsaking its basic tenets. These are pretty pictures with an attitude.

* WHERE AND WHEN

* Cheryl Riley and Jessica Dunne, through Feb. 26 at Ventura College, 4667 Telegraph Road. For information, call 654-6468.

* “1% Wall” by Yvette Sutton, through February at the Oxnard Public Library, 251 S. A St. For information, call 385-7500.

* Jenny Snyder watercolors, through Feb. 26 at Ventura City Hall, 501 Poli St. For information, call 658-4726.