JOURNEY THROUGH THE MIND : A 20-work art show reveals the talent that often underlies mental illness.

A fake owl dressed in a business suit perches in a wooden cage and, though poised before the open door, does not lean toward freedom.

The slightly surreal image is a commentary on institutionalized living and provides a central symbol for “The Gentler Side of Mental Illness,” an exhibit at Angels Gate Cultural Center. The show, which runs through June 20, features 20 works by sculptor Orell Anderson and residents of Harbor View House in San Pedro, a live-in facility for the mentally ill.

The show “leads the viewer into a symbolic journey through mental illness to remission,” explains Anderson, who curated the show. The exhibit includes Anderson’s sculpture and some collaborative pieces he created with the residents, but the primary focus is the residents’ work.

Most of the 38 residents who participated in the project during six months of workshops suffer from schizophrenia or other psychiatric disorders, says Michael Shaw, spokesman for Harbor View House. Their paintings, sculpture and assemblages express the reality, and showcase the talent, of the mentally ill.

“Some of the artists are expressing anger, some are expressing frustration, some are very moody or very happy, and some are quite bizarre,” Shaw says. “I was really impressed with some of the work.”

With the mentally ill, he adds, “It’s difficult to know what talent lies underneath.”

The works, interesting enough within the context of the show, also have a place in 20th Century art, explains Barbara Freeman in her essay on the show.

Freeman, research assistant for the 20th Century collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art, points out that art by the mentally ill has inspired modern artists such as Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet. Other celebrated artists produced great works while institutionalized.

The Harbor View House show goes beyond the fashionable “outsider art” exhibits, she says. Anderson’s installation “considers the nature of the residents’ private reality as well as his own and his collaborators’ creativity and haunted imaginations,” she writes. The works range from an expressionistic painting of a rose to a shrinelike installation that simulates a resident’s room as sculpture.

The enlightening if sometimes disturbing images should help remove some of the mystery and, it’s hoped, the stigma surrounding mental illness, Anderson says.

“We all think of mental illness as ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and electroshock therapy, and that’s not all there is,” he said.

“The Gentler Side of Mental Illness” is the second time Anderson has arranged a show of art by Harbor View House residents. In 1990, Anderson held a small exhibit of residents’ work at the residence. The show was so poorly attended, he was convinced that the public was afraid to attend an exhibit by mentally ill artists at their institution.

This time, armed with a $15,000 grant from the city of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Anderson moved the artists’ work to Angels Gate, where he hopes the work will heighten public awareness about mental illness.

In addition to artwork, the show features a nine-minute videotape of residents talking about their pieces and about what it is like to be mentally ill. The tape provides an emotional guide to the show, Anderson says.

“It’s like being in an art class listening to someone talk about their work,” he says. “It’s funny and sad, but the bottom line is that it says: ‘We’re doing OK. Don’t be afraid of us.’ ”

Shaw would like to see a larger audience for the works and hopes to move the show to a small local museum for a short run.

“I think it would surprise a lot of people to see the work that the mentally ill can do,” he says.

In fact, thoughtful viewers may be surprised to recognize a bit of themselves in the works. Writes Freeman: “In Anderson’s installation we are made aware of the human spirit as well as the creative spirit, and we recognize our likeness to, rather than our difference from the mentally ill.”

Angels Gate Cultural Center is at 3601 S. Gaffey St. Hours are Wednesday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. Information: (310) 519-0936.