Building an Impression : * An exhibit by seven artists explores how architecture influences the way we think and feel.

Architecture has an impact on us every day of our lives. The dwellings we live and work in can provide the foundation for a better life or an uncomfortable existence. In some circum stances, such as earthquakes, they can even collapse on us and kill us.

Despite architecture’s omnipresence, how much thought do we really give to the effect a building’s design and construction has on us?

“Architecture is so much a part of our lives, and we take it for granted,” Artspace gallery director Scott Canty said. “It’s funny how we build these huge, monumental structures like the ones Downtown. We want to show we’re the best. It reminds me of the story of Babel.”

He has organized the exhibit, “Artists and Architecture,” in the Woodland Hills gallery to “explore and question how our architecture influences the way we think and feel,” he said. The seven artists in the show “use elements of architecture to talk about something else: social, spiritual and environmental concerns.”

Candice Gawne accentuates the potential for excitement in our living environments with her dramatic use of light. The open doors of the assemblage, “Mi Casa es Su Casa” invite viewers into a domicile pulsating with neon. The room in the painting, “The Bed,” has been energetically illuminated by two lamps on either side of the bed. With this light and the painting’s contrasting dark, moody palette, one is given the sense that something mysterious is about to take place here, or maybe it already did.

Richard Sedivy works with oil, varnish and phosphorescent paint on Masonite to realize his visions of home, which glow in the dark. In “The Joy House,” a simple, angular dwelling stands next to the word, “joy,” presented in bubbly, flowing curves that convey the exhilaration inherent in the word.

The outright gaiety of “The Joy House” seems somewhat tempered in “Rosy Blemish: A Sense of Alacrity” by the many screws that have been driven into its structure. Yet, the symbols of nature--among them a flower, fruit, leaf and branches--suggest a liveliness about the structure.

Michael Hughes contemplates worlds beyond the home environment in his oil on canvas and wood panel “L.A. Mystery.” It pulls viewers in with seductive images typical of a good mystery novel or film set in L.A.--palm trees, a bungalow, silhouetted figures, car headlights beaming in the night. In the oil on burlap and wood panels of “Cathedrals,” an industrial plant rests above two cathedrals resembling Notre Dame. Below the cathedrals, another picture suggests an urban skyline. Underneath it is a wavy form, much like a snake.

“There is a sense of the story but the plot line is not truly revealed. The viewer supplies that which is missing to complete the plot,” Hughes writes about these works. “This incomplete story creates a mystery or enigma about the meaning of each piece and the relationship of the characters in it.”

Freeways are central to Seta Injeyan’s feelings about nature, architecture and us. In the middle of each painting is her photograph of a freeway section. From the photograph she moves out onto the canvas with her paints, creating expressionistic views of her own inner landscape as well as the physical one before her eyes.

Kristan Marvell questions humankind’s use of natural, organic forms in its designs and construction in his dimly lit installation “Requisite Columns.” The sturdy-looking, wood-like beams that seem to come out of or hold up the roof are actually made from Styrofoam he carved and painted.

In exploring the artist’s role in society, Richard Turner created “I Was Hitler’s Curator.” Reading about the art of the Third Reich, Turner learned that Hitler had planned a grand museum to house the works his Nazi regime had commissioned, purchased and stolen.

Taking the role of Hitler’s curator and architect, Turner has drawn an imaginary floor plan for this museum, which is in the form of the words, Kunst Halle (Art Hall). The artwork titles and artists listed in the drawings were taken from books about the art of the Third Reich.

Turner writes: “The piece poses the question, What would I have done had I been an artist in Hitler’s Germany? Would I have resisted enlistment in the National Socialist enterprise and been persecuted or driven into exile, or would I have allowed myself to become co-opted by the state like the artists whose names and works make up this drawing?”

Also in the show is photographic work by Jody Zellen.

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Artists and Architecture.”

Location: Artspace Gallery, 21800 Oxnard St., Woodland Hills.

Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Ends June 25. Also: “Conversations with the Artists,” 1:30 p.m. May 28.

Call: (818) 716-2786.