Imagining the Scottish Countryside

Don’t expect a handy, crisply noted travelogue from Lynn Morley’s “Scottish Landscapes of Lynnie MacNeil,” now hanging in the Administration Building of the Ventura County Government Center. The artist is less interested in capturing blades of grass or a hillside’s specific contours than she is in distilling an essence, which she does with overall facility and grace.

The best pieces here take the greatest liberties, capitalizing on the feathery textural properties of the pastel medium. “The Faither” is fuzzy in detail, but sparked by a sense of energy in the wavy sweep of lines in the composition. Nature seems to be teetering from an unseen, almost erotic, influence. The slice of hillside that is the subject of “Inverary Glen” is comprised of irregular bands that cut across the picture plane.

Pieces such as “Coatbridge Loch” and “MacNeil Bay” are drawn with a straighter eye, a more traditional landscape art approach, but nicely rendered.

Morley never steers so far away from the subject as to avoid the landmarks of landscape--horizon lines, recognizable hills and vegetation. But she does succeed in depicting an invitingly ambiguous world, all soft-edged forms and poetic suggestions.

* Lynn Morley’s “Scottish Landscapes of Lynnie MacNeil,” through April 3 at the Ventura County Government Center, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura; 654-3964.