Earthy Inspirations

One never knows quite what to expect from the Burbank Creative Arts Center gallery, a nicely laid-out space whose shows are of hit-and-miss quality.

The current show is of the “hit” variety, worth checking out, but act quickly because it ends today.

For the moment, the center has been delicately transformed into a tranquil space--a fine place to take refuge from the midsummer Valley bake-athon and meditate on the dialogue between culture and nature.

The three-artist show, “in the garden,” provides what you might expect, and then some. Nature-referential artworks, of the sculptural and two-dimensional varieties, are sparsely situated in the gallery, similar to the order and poise of Japanese gardens. This is art with nature on its mind, but the messages are mixed.

The most impressive and complex work is by Hei Myung C. Hyun, whose paintings allude to birds and flowers, the usual archetypes of the natural world, but who approaches the task in a self-conscious way. Her compositions are divided into modules, contrasted with pure design elements, or otherwise set into relief against artistic devices.

The blossoms in “Spring Flowers” are viewed against a grid pattern, imposing the artist’s touch of order and organization. “Nature 1-2-3” is a coyly titled triptych in which the artist depicts the continuity of natural life.

On the 3-D front, Myung Gyu Lee’s work mostly plays off the narrative implications of her multiple egg-like sculptures, half-cracked with their progeny having burst forth.

If eggs are emblematic of new life, their rusty metal pedestals evoke the obsolescence of man-made things, and the piles of bark on the ground below are reminders of the human impulse to corral nature into tidy, maintainable packages in our yards. Such is the way of gardening.

In Julie Sim-Edwards’ piece called “In My Garden”, tiny, delicate images are humbly thumb-tacked into an ad hoc collage on one wall, like rambling observations from the artist’s wandering eye. Elsewhere, she also leans toward multiples, as in “Village Homes,” a metal frame hosting pint-size assemblages, often referring to other images in the gallery.

Among those recurring images are forms made from the hard-yet-ethereal material of metal screen, and her several birdhouse constructions on display. Birdhouses, like gardens, can be viewed as our benign attempt to interact with natural forces beyond our control.

From that perspective, this show, beneath its pretty surfaces and veneer of innocence, is about envy and frustration. There’s drama burbling beneath the soil.

* “in the garden,” featuring the works of Hei Myung C. Hyun, Myung Gyu Lee and Julie Sim-Edwards, through today at the Burbank Creative Arts Center, 1100 W. Clark Ave., Burbank. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday; (818) 238-5397.

*

Standouts in a Modest Crowd: The eighth annual edition of the exhibition, “Art of Our Generations,” at the Finegood Gallery, is a mixed bag, and mostly a modest assortment of art put together under the auspices of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles. In the main, the art here comes from the unpretentious pleasantry school of art making.

But there are pieces that stand out. As always, subjective tastes dictate the individual viewer’s responses. Some, for instance, can readily appreciate the appealing directness of Al Fellman’s watercolor “Barn Majesty,” a pleasing study of geometry with a bucolic subplot.

Marlene Cavalcanti’s “Juana’s Portrait” is a close-up view of an old woman in enigmatic half light, leaning over a candle. A bright, unseen light source to the rear lends her white hair a glowing intensity, an almost beatific air.

The watercolor painting “Tasco Surprise,” by Joan Compton, depicts the exotic hillside city as a giddy checkerboard of summery colors, tilting in the direction of abstraction.

The token abstractionist of the bunch is m. Rheuban, who demonstrates subtlety and fluidity of conception in the two pieces here. “Life’s Room” is a small square painting with fragile black horizontal lines injecting ambiguous order against a foggy yellow-gray background.

“Compartments” evokes the sense of modularity in its title, but is hardly clean or predictable in its visual scheme. Again, fog and murky gray patches obscure the surface, while square sections within the composition vie for a sense of identity, struggling for clarity. And that well-stated struggle, a built-in tension, is its own reward.

* “Art of Our Generations,” through Aug. 23 at Finegood Art Gallery, Bernard Milken Jewish Community Center, 22622 Vanowen St., West Hills. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; (818) 716-1773.