Art Guild Showcases Local Talent

The art currently filling the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, under the aegis of the Westlake Village Art Guild’s 22nd annual Juried Fine Art Show, is more copious than coherent. If there is a message to be gleaned from the pell-mell of styles and attitudes represented here, it is that a good deal of art is being made in the extended neighborhood.

Expectedly, a lot of the art falls into the category of Sunday artistry, with pleasant and often skilled landscapes and pinchably cute portraits. But there are also pieces that stand above the crowd, in terms of substance and visual allure.

Some artists invest fresh approaches to timeless genres, as with the sumptuous peaches painted by Pat Mason. In the simple but eerily evocative “I Go to Pieces,” Judy Koenig depicts a doll in pieces, its presence casting mysterious shadows on a wooden backdrop. Mary Ann Panopoulos’ “Brick Patio at Tara” offers an oblique angle on, and elegant rendering of, a commonplace scene in the yard.

More exotic is “Costa Rican Roof Top,” in which Peter Cronk depicts a church with a brush technique of swirling dabs and flecks.

Echoes of the masters are evident. Eve Riser-Roberts wields lines, squiggles and geometric configurations on a bed of cloudy colors in her homage to Paul Klee, “Klee’s C-A-T-Crazy,” while Sheila Fein nods toward the influence of Matisse’s drenched color and art-within-art wit in her “Picture View.”

Among the entries in photography, which are few, the best images are by Michael Appuliese, whose “Leaving L.A.” is a celebration of the gently rolling, mustard-flecked hills on the outskirts of the urban matrix.

In short, the show offers plenty to look at and a fair amount to admire.

* Westlake Village Art Guild, 22nd annual Juried Fine Art Show, at Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, 2331-A Borchard Road in Newbury Park; 498-4390.