People of L.A. on Exhibit : Works on display at Pierce College’s gallery portray faces of the community in their daily lives.

Who are the people of Los Angeles? There are no quick, easy ways anymore to describe this city’s inhabitants. And the cliches--of the mindless but beautiful men and women seeking fame and fortune in Hollywood, for instance--never fit most of us anyway.

Two thoughtful, stirring views of Los Angelenos are on display at Pierce College’s art gallery in the show, “Transcendent Realism: paintings by Roy Buchman and Eloy Torrez.”

Though the subjects, stories and painting styles presented by these two Los Angeles artists are considerably different, their work proves highly complementary in its shared expressions of warmth and admiration for the people portrayed, and for the joy of life itself.

“Roy is right in there with people in the streets of the inner city. He is an observer. He presents you with a situation,” said Joan Kahn, gallery director and show curator. “Eloy’s work represents the people of L.A. in a symbolic way. He is interested in the psychology of his friends who sit for these paintings. He enters the persona of his sitter, almost putting himself in the shoes of his subject. In their work, these two artists transcend reality and find spirituality.”

Rather than paint on a flat canvas, Buchman first creates a three-dimensional structure to paint on, amplifying the sense of images based on his sketches and photographs of people he’s seen.

Two old women sit on a bus bench that advertises the African Methodist Episcopal Church in “What Becomes of Faith When the Proof of a Miracle Has Been Destroyed.” In another painting, a group of people, probably recent immigrants, wait at the bus stop. A prostitute encounters a few men on a city street. Although these images may sound downbeat, they are actually energetic, engrossing slices of life.

“I choose to paint people in their daily experience because of the inexhaustible source of meaning that comes out of human interaction,” Buchman said.

“I like how they’re pictures of urban life and how they’re fractured--they show a giant riff, an underlying tension in society,” said Peter Yee, a Pierce College student.

Buchman said he was unconsciously inspired to incorporate rhythmic structures in his paintings by rolling hills and rock formations that he viewed on several driving trips in California.

“The curved forms are a result of the rolling hills,” he said. Imitating the rock formations that break up the smoothness of the hills, Buchman uses wood pieces and various objects, including shoes, to “cause tension and break up the curving forms” of his work, he said.

It was Buchman who suggested to Kahn that his work be shown with work by Eloy Torrez. “I really love the way he draws the figure. . .He’s trying to blend his Native American and European heritage together, like world music,” Buchman said.

Torrez’s portraits span the last 10 years. His most recent paintings reflect the influence of an extended stay in France in 1991. A muralist since 1983, he was invited to paint a mural on a low-income housing project in an area where there was tension among French, Arab and Algerian people, and where young people were involved in graffiti, drug dealings and gang violence. There, he was also “exchanging cultural information” with people in the community, he said.

Torrez expresses those themes and more in his painting “The Second Coming,” in which a woman stands on a cloud overlooking Earth. “The male is discovering his female side, and the female her masculine side,” Torrez said. The painting’s title refers to his musing on the idea that “the Second Coming could be a woman,” he said.

During his stay in France, he also took a trip to Italy and the Vatican. His painting, “When the Spirit Encounters the Flesh,” of a man and a woman embracing--he is adorned with angel’s wings--brings together Torrez’s cultural heritage, his contemporary art sensibilities and the impact on him of a visit to the Sistine Chapel.

“Michelangelo’s figures are so sensual, physical, almost erotic, but also spiritual, almost like an answer to a higher source,” Torrez said. “He captured the true idea of being human, the duality of being physical and spiritual.”

Where and When What: “Transcendent Realism: paintings by Roy Buchman and Eloy Torrez.” Location: Pierce College Art Gallery, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills. Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Monday evenings. Ends Dec. 10. Call: (818) 719-6498.