Valley Weekend : SIGHTS : Artists’ Works Turn Archetypes Inside Out : Keith Sklar and Rebecca Edwards, in an exhibit at Brand Library, share some startling sensibilities.

At face value, the vigorous paintings of Keith Sklar and the work of Rebecca Edwards--mostly sculptures--would appear to have little in common. Sklar is represented by dense, sensuously chaotic canvases in which the frazzled face of expressionism meets mythology of childlike innocence. The enchanted domain of Pinnochio meets the noxious netherworld of post-modern angst.

In the other corner, Edwards’ body of work deals mainly in female figures turned asunder, torsos transformed into barbed sight gags. The works are, by design, well-crafted jokes with a delayed sting of feminist commentary.

And yet, separate as their work appears, the artists, currently showing at the Brand Library in Glendale, do share sensibilities. Both are intent on using art to turn archetypes inside out for re-examination.

Sklar’s paintings are feisty, visceral things, with thick, unruly buildups of paint. Glimpses of identifiable forms peer out from behind thickets of abstraction, and easy narrative readings are blurred.

Through the painter’s seemingly intuitive approach, any incidental sense of structure sets itself up for self-destruction. Portions of the canvas spin out of control, resulting in angry smears or indifferent blobs flung from the palette.

The most dramatic portion of the exhibition is given over to the eerily effective series titled “Gepetto’s Progress,” retracing with an obsessive energy the tribulations of Gepetto as he ventures into a cruel world to rescue his beloved Pinnochio.

Sklar sees the toy maker’s mission not as a pretty Technicolor saga with a happy ending, but a journey fraught with peril and personal injury. The central conceit of Sklar’s series is the notion of turning something so seemingly charming as Pinnochio’s story into a hellish tale worthy of Heironymus Bosch or the Old Testament.

By the time he arrives at one of the more representational images, the large canvas “Gepetto’s Job,” the toy maker is bruised and battered, with a half-dead look in his eyes. Pinnochio looks dehumanized, his long, twisting nose now intertwining with the exposed entrails of his creator.

Skewering folklore may be an easy trick, explored at great length by narrative/anti-narrative painters in the last decade. But, through this series, and other paintings on view, Sklar shows an impressive ability to seduce the eye with his flair for visual pandemonium. His intention seems less about poisoning innocence than retelling a simple story through a different vocabulary.

GO FIGURE

Edwards makes no great effort to disguise the burning issue in her work: targeting our culture’s fetishism concerning the female form. Feminist rhetoric buzzes around the hall gallery where Edwards’ sculptures stand. Fortunately, so does a wicked sense of humor.

With her series of female torsos, she shows a dark ironic touch and a taste for telling materials. “Fighting Fat” is a boxing glove filled with hunks of butter. More startling yet is “Crowning Glory,” a torso covered in wavy patches of hair,” and “Pet,” in which the truncated body in question is neatly draped in felt. The pun here is a triple whammy--the figure has a pet-like charm, and begs to be petted, and “felt.”

“Earth Mother” is a headless figure wrapped in moss, holding a pomegranate with the temptress pose of Eve. A detached man’s hand sits on a shoulder, more a come-on than a gesture of comfort.

Edwards manages to use humor as a leavening agent in her art, a lubricant in the machinery by which she gets her message across.

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DETAILS

* WHAT: Keith Sklar and Rebecca Edwards.

* WHERE: Brand Library, 1601 W. Mountain St. in Glendale.

* WHEN: through Tuesday.

* FYI: 548-2051.