Local Viewpoint

For the fourth straight year, Santa Paula artist and activist Xavier Montes has organized a show at the Union Oil Museum to give local Latino art, seen too rarely in these parts, a public showcase.

The show goes by the apt name of “De Colores,” which translates to “made from color” and is also the title of the song adopted as the United Farm Workers’ anthem. The show is a lively forum with a purpose, fostering cultural expression and exploration from a predominantly Latino perspective.

But that perspective is less connected by style or theme than by general outlook. Montez’s own “Going Home” finds a shepherd in a desert-like setting, leading the flock into a brilliant sunset, a symbolic image that contrasts with Montez’s other piece in the show, a portrait of Mother Teresa, beatific smile in place.

Fillmore-based artist Michael F. Torres offers his own portrait of a peace-making icon with his mosaic-like image of Cesar Chavez. Carlos Santana, another modern Latino hero, appears in a stylized portrait by Robert Villegas, whose “Spiritual Awakening” involves a more complex notion: on one side, the haunting vision of the Vietnam War battleground, on the other, the pleasant reality of a tranquil bay by night.

From a distinctly different angle, Chuy c/s projects a vibrant style, humming with color and raw expression. “Con la Jennifer” is a street corner scene: a couple in a cafe, a vintage coupe parked outside. A tiny painting with huge charm is “Flor de Campo,” an image of an older woman bearing flowers, set on a turquoise background.

Juan Solorzano’s “Don Salvador” is a traditional, posed portrait, nicely rendered in warm tones. Manuel Unzueta, the noted teacher and muralist from Santa Barbara, shows more mystical paintings, blending elements of pure design and metaphorical imagery.

* “4th Annual De Colores Art Show,” through May 31 at the Santa Paula Union Oil Museum, 1001 E. Main St. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; (805) 933-0076.

Art/Science Connection: Legend has it that art and science make strange bedfellows, each pursuing different paths toward different goals.

To simplify the stereotype, one field is perhaps more intuitive and creative while the other takes more rational courses of action and investigation. It’s not altogether true, and that’s the subplot of an intriguing exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, “Out of Sight: Imaging/Imagining Science.”

Here we find a wealth of strange, alluring pieces that, on the face of it, look and act like art. They’re often visually arresting, like the curious mutant form in Oliver Meckes’ “Natural Killer Cell” or Felice Frankel’s views of DNA strands, transformed into intricate abstract patterns, even before we know what we’re looking at--and especially after we know what we’re looking at.

One could say that a lot of the pieces here function as portraits of life on microbiological and cosmic levels: images and illustrations of DNA and cells--both those that are cancerous and those that fight the good fight against bad cells--are star subjects.

Teamwork went into several of the more complex, computer-generated pieces, such as the micro-drama “Nanoscape I: Encounter in the Blood Stream,” by Arthur Olson, with the help of Stephan Meyers, Ellen Sander and Janine Fron, with an ambient, looping soundtrack by Susan Alexander.

A soundtrack is appropriate in a piece depicting rainbow-colored antibodies on the righteous warpath against a virus. Just looking at it, one feels healthy and instilled with pride in biological engineering.

The hard-to-describe pieces that most suggest conceptual art actually hew the closest to the inventive processes by which science does its exploratory work.

In art and science, there are histories and models to draw from, but a lot of breakthroughs come through imaginative--and often accidental--mental leaps.

In one back room, Gary Schneider assembles a series of images of body parts, from the inside out. X-rays and microscopic views of various joints, dental structure, cells, and even a lone sperm add up to his distinctive variation on an art world tradition in “Genetic Self-Portrait.”

A frame with a vertical bed of grass bears an image of a mother and child, produced by the natural process of photosynthesis, in Heather Ackroyd’s and Dan Harvey’s “Mother and Child.” Dui Seid’s “Blood Lines,” set in a darkened booth in the gallery, combines video, projections and glass tubing to create its meditative reflection of life in the gene pool.

In this show, teeming with remarkable imagery in the medical and aesthetic realms, some of the most easily identifiable images beautifully embellish the underlying message here. Michael Spano’s series of photographs of researchers lost in their lab work relies on some double exposures and other photographic techniques to portray the atmosphere of science-in-the-making.

These scientists appear surreal and transported, into a place where ideas and realities swim around each other, looking for docking opportunities. Just like in art.

“Out of Sight: Imaging/Imagining Science,” through June 7 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday; Friday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; (805) 963-4364.