Art Imitating Art

In an age when culture history is laid out behind us and richly documented, art about art is a sign of the times--a recurring theme in 20th century art, and beyond. More than a post-modernist fad, the possibilities in art-referential art are limitless, really.

That is a point hammered home in the current exhibition of work by Priscilla Bender-Shore at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center.

Bender-Shore, who has shown her work far and wide and has taught art at Santa Barbara City College for more than 20 years, has an exhibition called “Dancing at the Edge of the World: The Muse Series.”

Basing her variations on the theme of Andrea Mantegna’s “Parnassus,” circa 1469, the artist combines personal expression and a broader outlook on art history. She burrows into the process of reflection and analysis, while exercising her own art-making savvy along the way.

Variation is a key word in the show, in which the scale and the media are nothing if not diverse. Small-drawing studies contrast with mini-mural-like pieces consuming gallery walls.

Unlike more specifically historicist or period-piece art, modern realities and terms come to bear in Bender-Shore’s work. “X-Ray Invention” is a charcoal-like acrylic piece, suggesting the modern-day tactic of learning about art via such scientific means as medical technology.

Dipping deeper into modern vocabulary, she names some pieces “Gridlock,” in punning reference to the use of an analytical grid in re-creating the original painting’s details.

Different issues are at stake in different works. In “Gridlock, Finish/Unfinish,” painting details are enclosed in square modules, such as a muralist might use in creating a large-scale image, with varying degrees of finish. Paradoxically, it’s a complete work-in-progress about being a work-in-progress.

Soft-peddled feminist themes surface in pieces such as “Women Walking a Pink Tightrope,” with its decorative serpent wriggling below the unsuspecting muses. In the large diptych “Baroque Invention,” a suffusion of red hues suggests emotional warmth--and the suffocating heat of claustrophobia. That is a suitable, and valid, ambiguous reaction to art with a complicated personality. It is art that looks elsewhere while gazing inward and tries to find the link between those seeming contradictions.

Bender-Shore’s show is another notable event in the still-fledgling life of this gallery space. Nestled in ample digs on the grounds of the former Camarillo State Hospital and the future home of CSU Channel Islands, it’s a jewel among recently opened art venues in the county and well worth a visit.

To get to the gallery, take Lewis Road to University Drive, then turn right on Santa Barbara Street and left on Ventura Street. There is a big sign out front.

Bender-Shore will give a talk at the gallery at 3 p.m. today.

DETAILS

Priscilla Bender-Shore, “Dancing at the Edge of the World: The Muse Series,” through March 10 at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo. Gallery hours: noon-3 p.m Thursday-Saturday; 383-1368.