Visions of Permanence

Connecting the two very different main exhibitions at the Carnegie Art Museum, the focus is on--the Carnegie Art Museum. Specifically, the focus is on the improving health of its permanent collection.

Upstairs, the museum is proudly--and rightfully so--showing a recent acquisition, Frank Romero’s mural “The History of the Chicano Movimiento,” along with other Romero works attesting to his inimitable, robust charms. Downstairs, the collection of the poet Jackson Wheeler, rich in worthwhile Ventura County-made artworks, is a glimpse of an acquisition to come, since Wheeler has promised to donate his collection to the museum.

Romero has long been a hero and supporter of Chicano art, creating wild, vibrantly colored works that tap into both modern mythology and heritage going back to Mexican roots and pre-Columbian archetypes. But he also has his finger on the pulse of the street.

“The Death of Ruben Salazar,” for instance, is a disarming dazzler of a painting, a visual dance of color and throbbing rhythms, design-wise. The subject is a man on the roof of the Silver Dollar saloon being blown away by a SWAT team below. He goes out in a blaze of martyred fireworks, his name appearing, magically, on the neighboring movie theater marquee.

Romero also takes it to the street, literally, in his well-known mural work. His impressive, calmly expansive interior mural, “The History of the Chicano Movimiento,” is, by normal outdoor mural standards, a modestly scaled piece, suitable for hanging in a gallery setting. But it packs a punch.

Spread over three large panels, the composite image tells a not necessarily linear story about the Chicano experience. Facts of urban life, Mexican cultural references, masks and symbols of Chicano pride converge in a composition that is bold but also elegantly pitched. It’s a fine addition to the museum.

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The show of Wheeler’s eventually museum-bound collection is called, aptly, “Poet Among Painters”: He is a poet who has amassed a good, extensive collection of work by Ventura County artists. The result, as seen here, is a fine reflection of the variety and vim of the local art scene.

Although a good eye is evident in the group, diversity rules among the individual works. Lawrence Hinckley’s quirky painting of turkeys is funny yet vivid. Here, the maligned birds assume an unexpected grace, and their necks appear more majestic than pathetic--although severance-bound. In Richard Peterson’s “The Mystery Physique,” a bodybuilder shows his “wares” in the glaring, banal lucidity of sunlight in the suburbs.

One of the surprises is a 1989 still life of nicely observed flowers in a vase, by Christine Brennan, now well-known for nether-worldly creatures of her own devising (represented by a tiny box painting). Michael Dvortcsak’s “Chrysalis” exudes his typical, paradoxical mix of strong character and searching nature, its mummy-like figure embodying an object-organism in transition.

Dipping into local art history, we find Cornelius Botke’s “Little Street in Brittany,” a nice, picturesque etching, a companion piece with the woodcut “Sycamore” by his wife, Jesse Arms Botke. The Botkes, based in Santa Paula, were pioneers in the county’s art scene, and their work has weathered time and fashion well.

The photography facet is rife with good work, as well, from Charles Spink’s wonderful, dryly bizarre “Tumbleweed Table” to the desolate, shadowy Americana of John Nichols’ “Welcome-Lock, California.” Mark Matthews did a memorable series of staged photographs, of which “The Blues Man” is a fine example: a crude figure made from blue clay withers in a cell, suffering from either existential oppression, a bum rap or both.

Compassion oozes from the late, great Ojai-based photographer Horace Bristol’s Depression-era portrait, “Mrs. Sandy and her Brother.” Bristol worked on a celebrated photo essay of migrant farm workers in Central California in the late ‘30s, along with the young writer John Steinbeck, who went on to draw on his experiences in “Grapes of Wrath.” Bristol’s images speak volumes, quietly.

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In yet another artistic stylistic turn, printmaker Nancy Snooks’ exhibition, “The Book of Revelations,” is showing in the museum’s basement, where many of its classes and workshops are held. As the title suggests, Snooks’ work is unabashedly awash in religious connotations and images, with the Bible as a direct source.

Work with an earnest Christian basis is a rarity in contemporary art, unless approached in a controversial, provoking way, as most recently witnessed in the exhibition “Sensation: Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection,” now at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Some, including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, found the work, which mixes religious iconography and materials such as elephant dung, blasphemous.

Snooks’ work courts no controversy, nor does it make overt proselytizing efforts, but juxtaposes scenes from the book of Revelations with references to the modern world. We find the four horsemen, rendered with a rough-sketching hand, and hints of current social reality, the crucifixion, cosmic visuals and other elements gathered in an orderly yet kaleidoscopic mix.

Though necessarily apocalyptic in nature, Snooks’ art seems to project the brighter side of doomsday lore.

DETAILS

“History of the Chicano Movimiento,” mural by Frank Romero; “A Poet Among Painters,” works in the Jackson Wheeler collection; and Nancy Snooks’ “The Book of Revelations,” through Nov. 21 at the Carnegie Art Museum, 424 South C St., in Oxnard. Hours: Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m.; 385-8157.

Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.