Women’s Works

Whatever the highlights are of the sprawling Women Painters West show at the Brand Library, the subtext is hard to ignore.

The exhibition celebrating the 78th anniversary of the artists’ consortium was curated by Ruth Weisberg, USC’s dean of fine arts. The array of work winds its way through the gallery space, the common thread less to do with artistic vision than with expressive freedom.

One of the best pieces, Vivian Matheson’s “Snorkel Fire Truck” is a strangely compelling image, almost ironic in its clarity. Two grinning, sun-flecked firefighters sit in a vintage red firetruck, the words “Culver City” clearly visible overhead. The painting plays like a giddy ode to bygone civic pride, in light and vivid color.

A different sort of narrative distinguishes Masha Schweitzer’s “January 17, 1994,” in which a dog stands beneath an unfinished freeway overpass, either under construction or after an earthquake. We assume it’s the former, but the edginess in the painter’s approach allows for a darker interpretation.

The etching “European Memories” by Greta Aufhauser reflects muted Impressionism. A grayish, foggy city scene with buildings and swans looks filtered through the distorting lens of memory.

Assemblage art shows up in nonthreatening forms. Rose Clark’s “The Relic,” fashioned from ram horns, metal parts and rough wood, presents an attitude that is both rustic in content and tidy in execution.

Lorraine Veeck’s mixed-media pieces present distorted nostalgia with vintage photographs, buckles and twine offset by bold, earth-toned shapes.

In Shirley Ransom’s “Persimmons on Line,” rows of bright orange fruit embedded in blue shadows become a study in visual pattern and hue. Vegetation overflows in Wanda Svenson’s “Flora,” its imagery settling into a dreamy post-still life effect.

The oddest “landscape” work is Virginia Sandler’s “Mars-1999,” a curious, roughhewn work. A vigorous splash of pulpy red stuff on the surface prevails over teasing glimpses of other colors peeking through. It could be read as a metaphor for our dim understanding and perennial curiosity about cosmic life, or as a riff on the theme of color energy.

BE THERE

Women Painters West, 78th Anniversary Exhibition, through July 2 at the Brand Library Gallery, 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale. Tuesday and Thursday, 1-9 p.m.; Wednesday, 1-6 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. (818) 548-2051.