Art Ahoy

Ventura County, though shy of art institutions, per se, has its fair share of notable museums off the beaten path, into which art repeatedly finds its way. We have the Union Oil museum in Santa Paula and the Albinger Archaeological Museum in Ventura. Even the Ventura County Museum of History and Art trains much of its focus on regional history.

Meanwhile, things nautical and ocean-minded rule at the Ventura County Maritime Museum. A pleasant, nicely outfitted structure nestled, logically enough, in the Channel Islands Harbor, the museum brims over with exhibits, elaborate how’d-they-do-that? model ship-making marvels and paintings--some pretty dazzling vintage artworks, in fact--celebrating the high open sea and boat lore.

Yes, as with other specialty museums in the area, art is woven into the Maritime Museum’s exhibition agenda, with the natural caveat that it shows art about sea and shore. The current exhibit, Nautica 2000, showcases works by Ventura County artists on the theme.

Innovation or highly personalized expressions emerge only sparingly in this bunch of works, but the water-based view tends to be tranquil or, to use an adjective for the occasion, Pacific in mood.

In this juried show, ribbons are attached to the pieces, a notion that still smacks of county fair tactics and can be distracting in the process of art appreciation. First place goes to Donna Clark’s “Promenade Surf I,” a pleasing watercolor view, and second place goes to Glenna Kurz’s “Fishing the Banker,” a depiction of a fishing boat in turbulent waters, whose style evokes Winslow Homer’s sea scenes.

For more or less local color, Pong Apynyavat’s “Pacific Coast Highway #5” deserves merit for its gently modulated dance of colors and lines, in an admiring view from a hillside of the famed PCH. Yes, Malibu and its outskirts are a landscape for celebrities and swollen real estate prices, but, lest we forget, it’s also a stretch of inspiring natural beauty.

Some of the intrigue in the show comes through the contrast of different artists dealing with the same subject. Harbor life is calmly, colorfully documented in Margy Gates’ “Morning at the Keys” and Gerhard Kammer’s “Tradition,” an orderly, geometrically inclined composition in which the title defines both the artistic approach and the name of a boat in the picture.

The Hueneme lighthouse is shown in the clear light of no-fuss realism in Deborah Findlay’s “1930 Hueneme Lighthouse,” whereas Jacquelyn Cavish’s view of the structure is rougher-hewn, all quirky angles and a reddened, amped-up palette.

Then again, twin forces of the sea’s vastness and tranquillity and its natural, turbulent energy become the driving paradox of the museum as a whole. Such is the nature of maritime life and maritime culture.

Peruse the rest of the museum’s displays and one finds a constant push-pull of peaceable nature and perilous tension. The famed 19th century British painter J.M.W. Turner is best known for his dreamily poetic landscapes and seascape paintings, which veer toward the abstraction yet to come in art history. Here, though, we find Turner prints dealing with the gnarled interactions and dynamics of battle, in “The Victory in the Battle of Trafalgar” and “Death of Nelson.”

Other paintings dwell on the particular, almost fetishistic appeal of ships at sea (and “with” and “against” the sea). The young painter David Thimgam’s work has a clarity and traditional strength of expression, which resonate with the nearby collection of fastidiously crafted and carved model ships by Edward F. Marple, whose own workshop is re-created in another corner of the museum.

All in all, the Maritime Museum is well worth a look, for sea-legged types, landlubbers and even art-lovers.

DETAILS

Nautica 2000, through July at the Ventura County Maritime Museum, 2731 S. Victoria Ave., Channel Islands Harbor, Oxnard, 984-6260. Daily, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

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