Getting the Picture

Art and culture are taking over the Cal State Northridge campus Saturday, with free events all day. It’s a fine opportunity to catch the current art exhibition on the final day of its run.

The work of Darrell Ellis, showing in the Art Dome, carries its weight with a deceptive lightness.

These images in pen and ink, charcoal and other media, spin off the unfettered world of posed family snapshots, but extend into deeper emotional realms. It’s as if they’re viewed through the fuzzy filter of nostalgia, but always with an element of distortion.

A search for identity and hints of pain are apparent, and we look at the art differently knowing the sad background of the artist, who died in 1992 of AIDS at age 30, and whose father was killed before he was born. Armed with that knowledge, there is a poignancy in the series of pieces based on a photograph of “Mother, Father and Laure,” in which the father is obscured by various means--smudged, scratched or blotted out.

One room in the gallery is devoted to self-portraits modeled after photographs.

Ellis tends to appear bold, and by turns, uncertain and searching for meaning. That interpretive process of translating a photograph into a new, nonchemical medium is central to the strength and loose charm of Ellis’ drawings and paintings.

Another untitled piece finds a well-dressed man standing proudly in front of a 1950s model sedan, an obviously posed snapshot redefined in ink and paper.

Last Chance Art: Down the street from CSUN is another Valley art show closing Saturday, at the VIVA Gallery. The exhibition called “VIVA 3D” is a group show of sculptors and collage artists for whom two dimensions are not enough.

Art of note comes from Laura Wambsgans’ twisting, cleanly styled, mollusk-like forms, Louise Norman’s Rockwell-ish vignettes, and Jean Cherie’s inventively manipulated paper sculptures.

Diversity rules here, and no natural curatorial thread connects Matt Croteau’s gnarled mutant sculptures with Bill McEwan’s abstract sculptures.

June Schnitzer shows subtle collages, and Lois Ramirez weaves snippets of text and bumpy, tactile surfaces into her relief pieces. Nature is a literal and figurative fixation for Cindy Medlynn. Her earthy wall pieces, made from actual dirt and rock, evoke art-about-archeology and respect for nature’s awesome power. One of the titles, “Fault Line,” hits a bit too close to home in Northridge, even after all these years.

BE THERE

Darrell Ellis, through Saturday at CSUN’s Art Dome, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. Gallery hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. today; noon-4 p.m. Saturday. (818) 677-2226. “VIVA 3D,” through Saturday at the VIVA Gallery, 8516 Reseda Blvd., Northridge. Gallery hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. today; noon-4 p.m. Saturday. (818) 576-0775.