Environmental Perceptions

The term “environment” has various, shifting layers of meaning in the provocative show of installation works now at the CSUN Art Dome.

“Southern California Environments” consists of multidimensional works by Southern California artists with an emphasis on our perceptions of environment, on personal and geographical terms, manipulated in often clever ways.

In the most dramatic case, Tom McMillin and George Geyer have collaborated, with the help of technicians, in creating a space within a space in the back of the gallery. “Climatic Extremes” is a self-enclosed, microcosmic structure that lives up to its title.

At this study in contrasts, we pass through a short entryway of reflective walls glowing with red light, a warm, closed passageway into the larger central space, this one kept at a chill by the refrigerator element in the art object itself. In this dimly lighted inner sanctum, a large upside-down cone structure is suspended from the ceiling over a round pool with water. Layers of ice give the apparatus a mystical, arctic ambience, and the steady metallic hum evokes the notion of a beehive, with its quality of highly focused activity, and nervous industry.

Environmental elements come into the gallery from the outside in Connie Zehr’s “Coincidents,” a topographical sand sculpture on the gallery carpet. With “Given Water,” Karen Frimkiss Wolff has placed multiple strings of small silver bells from the ceiling, corralled into a series of white-painted wooden boxes on the floor. The piece appears to refer to the tightly defined and increasingly sophisticated processes by which we channel and contain the natural element of water.

And from a totally different perspective, physical space is sculpted without physical objects in the fascinating piece “Psst,” by Michael Brewster. Here, a room in the gallery is fitted only with four small speakers--in each corner--that emit irregular sound events: a woman uttering the hushed sound of the title.

The sum effect of the piece is subtler than it first seems. Brewster defines the space through the rhythmic displacement of sounds, but also triggers psychological associations of a common, conspiratorial phoneme. To boot, the piece is winking good fun, with a serious subtext. In the end, it’s a hypnotic environment to hang out in.

BE THERE

“Southern California Environments,” through March 6 at CSUN Art Dome, 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. Gallery hours: Monday and Saturday, noon to 4 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; (818) 677-2226.