Frames of Reference

On the face of it, the exhibition at the Century Gallery called ‘The Defined Edge” might appear to be a cerebral indulgence suitable mainly for fine-art die-hards.

The curatorial theme: art that investigates approaches to the edges in artworks, as containers and frames, or attitudes toward edges within the iconography.

But the issue is more significant than it might seem, and the art here is generally engaging.

All in all, it’s one of the finer shows presented in this space this season, worth a trip to this gallery on the Valley’s, um, edge.

These four artists aren’t inherently connected except that they present divergent relationships to the issue implied in the show’s title. Under these circumstances, we’re led to pose some basic questions about the art we’re looking at, such as: How does each artist get along with right angles? Or: To frame or not to frame?

The multimedia collage works of John Hertzberg bend and mutate in all manner of compound shapes.

He taps into the tradition of the “shaped canvas,” transcending the limitations of the conventional square or rectangular canvas, and sometimes pushing things to a point of giddy exaggeration.

In his case, the perimeter of the artwork doesn’t constrict the imagery. Instead, imagery rules. Visual materials, overlapping, layered in echoes and often distorted--as in the negative images of Marilyn Monroe--dictate the complex shape of a piece. As such, there is a direct interactive link between the edges and the content.

His two more orderly and symmetrical assemblages, contained within a diamond and triangle frame, respectively, are less effective--even if the artist wins points for including a banana and circuit boards. By contrast, William Lane is the minimalist of the bunch. He creates seemingly calm, cool abstract pieces composed of various rectangular bands and blocks of solid colors.

They’re not as austere as they pretend to be, as mild-mannered paintings with an active subliminal energy. His colors cohere into odd but affecting harmonies, and the singularity of his aesthetic touches us on a level of subtlety and circumspection missing in much art of the post-post-Modernist era.

And from the organic corner of the show, Marla Fields shows gouache-on-paper pieces, suspended behind glass.

Fluid, curvaceous forms with rugged, weathered texture suggest both an abstract- and landscape-geared artistic hand at work. Essentially, she’s riffing with shapes, dancing around form, and the end result is charming enough.

Perhaps the most striking art in the show is that of Jan Kunkle, who does, it should be noted, confine her mixed-media pieces to fundamental square and rectangular containers.

But she stuffs the compositions so full of hyperkinetic visual activity that the edges seem to quiver under pressure. Kunkle’s exuberant collage pieces are never quite as connected to the recognizable “real” world as we think at first glance. Shards of cut-out material lead nowhere or into a surreal maze of stimuli, and a general sense of friendly anarchy prevails.

She finds a wonderfully expressive path through the oftentimes bland landscape of collage thinking. Hers is art that manages to be dense, warm and, in her own way, edgy, all at the same time.

BE THERE

* “The Defined Edge,” through May 15 at the Century Gallery, 13000 Sayre St., Sylmar. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, noon- 4 p.m., Saturday; (818) 362-3220.