Valley Life : sights : Distorted and Proud : Artworks in exhibit at Sylmar gallery celebrate their unrealistic qualities.

The title of the current exhibition at the Century Gallery, “Representation and Distortion,” is a catch-all phrase. Virtually all visual artistic endeavors possess such qualities.

Yet the four artists in this show make no attempt to hide or qualify their distorting schemes.

Roger Dolin’s paintings, the most satisfying of the bunch, celebrate their own ocular tipsiness, as if viewed through warbling windows or under water. The distorted angles and forms accentuate the surreal oddity in a piece like “Tai Chi,” with its tai chi-practicing figures, hands thrust forward, looking vaguely foreboding rather than peaceful.

Dolin loves art about art-watching. In “Art Lover,” a figure in a gallery literally juts from the surface in three-dimensional relief. “Getty” plays off the bizarre juxtaposition of a visitor to the Getty Center, strapped into headphones, calmly perusing a painting of Christ’s dead, bloodied body after the crucifixion.

Hyper-close-up views of flowers dominate Maggie Thomas’ paintings. Thickly textured, prickly paint surfaces and in-your-face detailing in a piece like “Sunflower” give an almost uncomfortably intimate view of plant life.

Photography--distorted, of course--also appears. Tim Jahns’ tiny ambiguous images contain hazy overtones of sexuality and hedonistic excess without incriminating clarification. A stylistic pun is at work in Ralph Kacy’s winking images. Double exposures find curvaceous nude forms and landscapes occupying the same space and creating formal echoes. Although the idea sounds good on paper, in the photographs, cleverness rarely yields to wonder.

This is the first show of the academic season at the Century Gallery, connected to Mission College. Its clean, open gallery space--not to mention the return of curatorial thought and provocation on the walls--makes for a welcome return to the Valley art scene.

BE THERE

“Representation and Distortion,” through Sept. 18 at the Century Gallery, 13000 Sayre St., Sylmar. Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, noon-4 p.m. (818) 364-7771.