Creative Diversity

The latest addition to the suddenly flowering art gallery scene in Ojai has a humble face, but great potential. The Sweet Art Gallery, started by D. Sans Burke and christened with a grand opening last month, sits quietly a few blocks away from the bustling downtown Ojai arcade.

Inside, the visitor might be a bit startled to find not only a cast of notable local artists but also such names as Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston and Ed Moses. These are artists who, though from the West Coast, have reputations as internationally recognized fine artists, having helped validate the cultural dignity of Los Angeles beginning in the ‘60s.

In one sense, it may be disconcerting to find their work in a small gallery in Ojai, but, in another way, the connection makes perfect sense: Ojai, after all, is an ex-urban enclave a mere hour from Los Angeles, and a coveted retreat from the big city. Why shouldn’t its finer artists be represented here?

Burke, high on hopes and eager for action, is attending to the task, planning to blend shows of higher-profile artists and locals. In the inaugural show, titled “Smaller Works,” Burke dispenses with a theme in favor of a smorgasbord, presenting small pieces by artists veering in different directions.

The most memorable work is by Ruscha, the once and current king of Zen deadpan. In his best-known works, Ruscha confronts our expectations of the trivial, and forces us to reconsider, say, the meaning of a simple word or phrase.

Words have been his main putty for years, placed on canvases in ways that treat them like visual objects.

His paintings at the current Whitney Biennial in New York for instance, have their way with words. In “Brave Men’s Porch,” the phrase “BRAVE MEN RUN IN MY FAMILY” is set against the silhouette of a porch. Are these so-called brave men part of, or fleeing from, the family?

Ironic pranksterism is part of his agenda, along with perceptual issues. Of course, ironists have run fairly well amok in the post-’80s art world, but Ruscha can bask in the glow of his pioneer spirit.

A similar process of investigation is underway with his 1996 aquatint pieces at Sweet Art. They depict nothing more elaborate than plain, cylindrical drinking glasses, set against dark backgrounds and viewed from various angles. The series amounts to an odd variation on still-life art.

The form of the glass, accented in the dark, is defined by subtle reflections around the edges. Each becomes a metaphysical artifact floating in ambiguous space, a situation both funny and provocative, a paradox true to the heart of Ruscha’s best efforts.

Bengston’s works here are modest, but entertaining. His cutouts and watercolors are of a deceptive simplicity and contain visual double entendres, in which hearts also resemble rumps, amid cheerful fanfares of color.

In a separate aesthetic corner, Ed Moses’ mystical monoprints display a careful balance of logical, geometrical organization--held fast by underlying horizontal grid patterns--and looser, more abstract splotches and splashes.

The visual activity is hazy, set back from a surface on which immediacy is compromised by a filmy layer. The imagery draws in the curious eye rather than rushing out to seize attention.

The gallery walls also play host to Ojai-based art. Using a words-as-art scheme, in a way vaguely related to Ruscha’s signature work, Diane Fabian Fabiano shows canvases conveying the jubilation of rhythm, breaking up the word “per-cus-sion” into syllables. Also on view are Karen Lewis’ prints and Toni Shia’s abstract color patch works.

From Sharyn Robinson come more of her distinctive imagery. She creates dark, fuzzy, amorphous shapes that seem to refer to some interior dimension, on a molecular or cosmic level. Is that a landscape in “Three Mounds?” Are those squiggly blobs in “Eight Heads Are Better Than One” frisky embryos or metaphors for cell division? We’re left to the business of interpretation, and there lies the intrigue.

All told, this inaugural outing at Sweet Art, for all its rampant diversity, bodes well for the gallery. Time will tell what becomes of it, and how it weathers the fickle art gallery scene in the region. At the outset, all is well.

BE THERE

“Smaller Works,” through May 11 at Sweet Art Gallery, 602 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai. Gallery hours: noon-5 p.m., Thur.-Sun.; 646-5252.