Creative Forum

Five years back, a stalwart group of nine artists descended on the former Janss Mall in Thousand Oaks. They were seeking a viable public forum for their creative works, and formed the basis of the generous space called--logically enough--Gallery 9.

In effect, the retail- space-cum-gallery took the place of the old Conejo Valley Art Museum, which enjoyed a brief and sometimes impressive tenure in a large area of the mall, donated by the Janss family.

Some might have predicted a short run for Gallery 9’s artistic venture into commercial turf, renamed Janss Marketplace, but here it is, celebrating year No. 5--a tidy milestone for any gallery in the county, let alone a nook in mall culture. The vital signs are good, with the gallery’s ample, well-lighted space and generous viewing hours.

In a collective such as this, where the work is always that of a given set of artists, there is a potential problem with the art’s recurring familiarity. But the “5th Anniversary Show” offers a healthy, diverse look at Gallery 9 originators, later members and guest cameos.

There is funny business, too: Gene Schklair’s sculpture “I’ll Be Back” finds a life-size woman apparently making off with a painting by Phyllis Doyon, headed through the wall, like a ghostly shoplifter.

Charlotte Miller’s sky-scape offers sweeps of sunset, a blast of cloudy mystery; whereas Lynn Morley, who has shown intriguing landscape work in the past, presents puffy-yet-sensuous female figures, nodding to early Picasso. Figures and landscape merge in Mary Ann Panopoulos’ paintings of people lost in reflection, in nature, in thought.

For something completely different, Barbara Bouman Jay’s abstract painting is darkly reflective, with a Diebenkorn-ish organization of space. For Michele Westen Relkin, art-making is about complexities and veiled meanings, as with her “White Journal Series,” with translucent layers and teasing snippets of text.

Kim-Beyer Johnson’s acrylic paintings, portraying life bringing up baby, would be conventional if not for the unique surface effects, akin to the look of a solarization process in photography. From the photography contingent, Marie Chantal’s delicate, half-real photo-transfer works, at their best, are pretty and enigmatic.

In the back of the gallery, Jackie Heineman goes in various directions with her paintings, and is at her best when she embraces a sense of improvisational abandon and lightness, as in “Red Lady.”

Five years down, many more to come, one hopes.

* “5th Anniversary Show,” through Saturday at Gallery 9, Janss Marketplace, 205 Moorpark Road, Suite F, Thousand Oaks. Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday; noon-6 p.m., Sunday; 379-1901.

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Making the Grades: For another, more expansive, local collection under one roof, proceed to the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, where “A Classic Competition” presents the works of locally grown artists in an amiable show.

We could always quibble with these juried exhibitions, which insist on placing ribbons on the winners, especially after seeing the same ribbons flanking farm animals, pies and other showpieces, living and otherwise, at the recent Ventura County Fair. The nagging question is: Should something as inherently subjective as art be graded and subjected to hierarchical appraisals, like livestock?

Ignore the ribbons. Enjoy the work.

But for what it’s worth, the first-place winner in sculpture is Hanna Lee Hombordy’s “Eucalyptus Vessel.” She melds airbrushed clay surface, designed into a neo-constructivist-like structure, housing actual eucalyptus leaves, art and nature in accord. A similar effect is encountered in the upstairs gallery, with Christine J. Morla’s “Alice Does Tea,” a Wonderland-esque table and chairs covered in bark and leaves, splitting the difference between functionality and nature, and between waking and dreaming.

In photography, the award goes to Deborah Davis’ “Tijuana,” which basks in the unique patina of some Mexican architecture, all vivid colors and crumbling edifices. Another oft-seen local photographer, Michael Appuliese, shows impressive, macro-view odes to the surreal beauty of leaves, up-close and veiny. Diana Jacobs’ “Dress Up” is a subtle, wistful etching.

In painting, the coveted first-place ribbon is slapped on Bobbie Moline-Kramer’s crafty super-realist work, “Silvered Reflection,” a fastidious view of gleaming vessels, which begs the question “Is it paint or emulsion?”

Other two-dimensional work in the show couldn’t be more divergent. Kazuko Knowles’ bracing, cleanly rendered study of a white calla lily blossom contrasts sharply with Maria Downey’s pastel “Campesinos on Strike,” with its twisty Social Realist-inspired exaggerations of line. Michael Gonzalez’s “Reluctant” is an impressively frank, large portrait of a pensive young man in a hat. Bettina Winter’s “Silent Lyrics,” on the other hand, is a peaceful, violet-hued expanse, in which landscape elements give way to a calm sense of abstraction.

And then we have Suzanne Schecter’s nicely rough-hewn and charming “Conversation,” an oil-on-paper of figures placed oddly, obliquely, in the composition. Schecter’s perspective is vastly different from Gao Xiao Hua’s “Conversation,” a clear, crisply modeled portrait of a female pair.

In other award news, the “Director’s Choice” goes to a familiar favorite from the region, Christine Brennan. Here, she shows one of her signature vignettes detailing a mythical, possibly alien landscape, where sad, whimsical creatures roam, out of harm’s way. It could be a people’s and critic’s choice, as well.

* “A Classic Competition,” through Sunday at Carnegie Art Museum, 424 South C St., Oxnard. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday and Saturday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Friday; 1-5 p.m., Sunday; 385-8157.