Playful Use of Images Has Surreal Results

There is something unsettling but also amusing about Tim Jag’s sculptural riddles, now at the New Media Gallery of Ventura College. Jag’s art begs to be deciphered, but it’s not always an easy process, and the artist is not often eager to help the viewer along the path toward resolution.

In his show, “Point of Dialogue,” the San Francisco-based artist shows surreal assemblage pieces, with dry humor intact and an uncanny sense of how simple yet strange juxtapositions can jar the viewer’s sense of order.

“Exhaust” finds a pair of work boots dangling from a metal frame holding a dollar bill, perhaps commenting on the circuitry of work life, or perhaps not. In “Marriage,” two old black rotary phones are connected by tubing to a central jar of two different ambiguous liquids. It’s a loaded allegory of married life, to be sure.

In “Rationalism + Tail,” a row of reference books sprouts the long, striped tail of a stuffed tiger, and it boils down to a simple equation of opposites, the pragmatic abutting the frivolous. In “Enigma,” an odd garment bag on a hanger bears a blank name tag (identity debunked), suggesting either death--i.e. a body bag--or the service industry.

We’re asked to supply a more concrete interpretation for “J.F.K. (End of M.),” which presents a folded, faded American flag in a tiny cage dangling from a hook and an “American” brand padlock. It all adds up to a requiem for American innocence.

The going gets more abstract with one of the more puzzling, and satisfying, pieces, the “Continuum Machine/Black Waterfall,” in which a black, knotted length of rope dribbles illogically out of a faucet placed high on the gallery wall. The very image, playing with ideas of fluidity and the concrete, discreetly and deliciously upends our common-sense logic.

In Jag’s case, the shock of the irrational is the operative principle, and simplicity is the key. And, usually, as per the exhibition title, the idea of a dialogue among different elements and objects is at work. These are pieces made with an economy of means and a subversive inventiveness, not to mention a wily humor.

In the college’s Gallery 2, faculty member Debra McKillop shows a more muted set of works, under the telling title “Meditations on Time.” This is art that comments on the nature of time, both in terms of geometrical patterns--visual parallels of time’s steady, incremental passage--and hints of archeology.

McKillop uses mixed media on paper, with a palette that leans toward gray and aspires to a dusky, quiet intensity. The works demand close scrutiny, lest they be dismissed as being too enigmatic for their own good.

The “Migration” series consists of picture planes divided in half, like unfolded books, across which patterns of scratches and smudges and occasional bits of three-dimensional relief rise up from the surface. Hints of fossil life, too, can be detected, especially in the outlines of leaves.

Often, twirling cyclone-like images sit on the dividing line of an image, serving as an anchor in the composition, but also an emblem of instability--a temperamental act of God.

On first impression, McKillop’s art may be delicate and faint to the eye, but it contains strong qualities of motion and metaphor. Hers is a form of meditation without flab or cliche.

* “Meditations on Time,” paintings by Debra McKillop, and “Points of Dialogue,” sculptures by Tim Jag, through Oct. 25 at Ventura College, 4667 Telegraph Road in Ventura. Gallery hours vary; for current hours call 648-8974.

Group Think: The annual juried show at the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery has yielded a lot of casually spun goods, which seem to emphasize group shows and Art Lite. But regular visitors here can expect to find pieces of distinction amid the mediocrity.

Joey Wilson’s “You Are Here” deals with primitive icons on a mirror backing, commenting on the connections of people and historical periods. Annette Day’s “Deep Sea” is a dense blue abstraction, built up from layers of imagery, while Shirley Ransom’s “Which Way to Bombay?” revels in flamingos and repeated motifs evoking religious art from India.

Other highlights include Nobuhide Hishikawa’s diptych, in which a mysterious duality finds common ground between an image of the face of a man in apparent agony and the silent, sinister air of a manta ray in the ocean.

But perhaps the most potent works in the show are by Dakota F-B, whose compelling, rough-hewn paintings have a folk art-y charge and charm, but are not as friendly as the vivid colors seem to imply. In “Norwegian Wood,” the scene of a house in the woods bristles with furtive energy and colors on the verge of exploding. It’s an apocalyptic walk in the woods.

* “City of Thousand Oaks Annual Juried Art and Photography Show,” through Oct. 27 at Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, 2331 Borchard Road in Newbury Park. Gallery hours: 1-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday.