Sculptures Full of Life : Richard Gerrish’s steel figures, rich in humor and gestures, are on display at the Brand Library Art Galleries.

Richard Gerrish’s metal sculptures are full of life, even as they remind us of death.

Legs kick and hands fly as skull-shaped faces peer out from the 32 agile figures, most of them life-size, that make up his installation “The Minstrel Show” at the Brand Library Art Galleries. The spacious gallery buzzes with excitement, as if these sculptures were dancers in a rehearsal hall, spinning in their own orbits, warming up for the big performance.

“We need to dance within the face of death,” Gerrish said. “I tried to create a sense of dancing and music of the spheres--that music is the rhythm of life.”

The figures are light on their feet even though they have come out of the heaviest of materials--steel. Gerrish builds his forms from scrap metal, new steel and scraps left from his own workings and some found objects.

He draws primarily from the American heritage of minstrel shows, rich in gesture and humor, and Latino culture’s memento mori (remembrance of death) to make “cross-cultural sculpture,” he said.

As a self-described “Army brat,” Gerrish was exposed to numerous cultures. He was born in Japan and lived in the Philippines, India and all over Europe.

“I’m from the Anglo-Saxon establishment, but I’m living in this culture in L.A.--the most intense cultural mix,” Gerrish said. “I was looking for imagery that spoke to me personally and has an impact on the viewer. I want (viewers) to be confronted, to be a little bit nervous. Then I want them to get into the humor and playfulness--to see life through death.

“We are all united by death, but there are unanswered questions. My purpose is to open up viewers to questioning their thought processes.”

One can soul-search in front of the wall work, “Life After Death,” which beckons passersby to put their faces up against a skull-like mask. Behind it is a mirror so they can see how they look in a death mask.

On the more humorous side, the high-stepping “Yankee Doodle,” waving a big-time salute, is a dandy. Gerrish’s love of ballet and his studies of leg movement are evident in many of the pieces, especially “Cakewalk,” where we can sense a tempo in its kicking legs.

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In the geometric “Horns of a Dilemma,” the figure holds up an abstract element and a face mask, conveying Gerrish’s desire to strike a balance between abstract and representational modes of artistic expression.

“Prestidigitator” embodies the meaning of its title: someone who creates illusions by sleight of hand, such as a juggler.

Gerrish has been fascinated by minstrel shows since he attended one when he was about 10 years old.

“I saw such a visual feast,” he said. “I wanted to retrieve that feeling of animation and humor and color. It is a way of reaching back and getting in touch with my roots, of bringing that into the culture of L.A. and (showing) how that culture affects my life.

“Minstrel shows are important historically as a part of America’s past. They were racist, but they were an early step in integrating black culture into white culture. It’s important to remember these things in the context that they happened, and the value of those things.”

Complementing “The Minstrel Show” at Brand are Christina De Musee’s large, expressive multimedia works that reflect the pressures of urban life. The businessmen of “Wallstreet” have overblown heads that are somewhat detached from their bodies. The women of “City Life” are truncated; the black men depicted with heads but no bodies. The Madonna-like figure in “City Dwellers I, II, III” is pieced together, mechanized.

Until recently, De Musee was primarily a neoclassical and Romantic-style painter. These works are her “reaction to how we’re out of balance with nature,” she said. “Living in L.A., I’m concerned and frightened by the changes here. The intense population explosion and the effects it has on people are hitting me on artistic levels.”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Richard Gerrish: The Minstrel Show” and “Christina De Musee: Multi-Media.”

Location: Brand Library Art Galleries, 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale.

Hours: 1 to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, 1 to 6 p.m. Wednesday and 1 to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Ends June 28.

Call: Call: (818) 548-2050.