Through their eyes, the unseen, unspoken -- and unforgettable

By Pauline OConnor

May 8, 2008 7 AM PT

TWO YEARS ago, while on a trip through Central Europe, Topanga Canyon artist Fae Horowitz visited the sites of the former concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau. Given the camps’ ugly history, Horowitz was struck by the elements of physical beauty present.

“I kept noticing the trees, the grass, even the shadows,” she recalls. “Signs of life in the camps of death.”

Horowitz’s experience planted the seeds for “Silent Witness,” a new group show at the Topanga Canyon Gallery that examines society’s tendency to ignore or block out unpleasant realities instead of speak up about them.

Among the works on display are Horowitz’s “Last Night I Dreamed of Birkenau,” a photograph of a latrine at the prisoner camp that the artist hand-colored, adding faces and yellow stars; John Smith’s black-and-white photo “Bedroom,” in which streetlights twinkle prettily over a skid row sidewalk lined with sleeping homeless; and “Hear No Evil See No Evil Speak No Evil,” Robyn Feeley’s pastel painting depicting the proverbial Japanese monkeys Kikazaru, Mizaru and Iwazaru.

“They are all symptoms of how mankind’s inhumanity can be terribly destructive, either on purpose or simply by not paying attention,” explains Feeley.

Silence is also the theme of Ana Marini-Genzon’s new solo show at Tracy Park Gallery in Santa Monica, albeit with less sinister implications.

“It’s an exploration of inner silence, the silence people experience in their individual lives,” says the Buenos Aires native.

Featured prominently along with the 12 abstract paintings in Marini-Genzon’s exhibit is a sculptural installation with balled-up pieces of paper suspended in transparent tubes of tulle.

“I was walking around Santa Barbara, and this shopping bag someone was throwing out caught my eye. It was filled with patterns, the kind people use to make dresses,” Marini-Genzon recalls.

The trove of patterns would probably strike most people as junk, but to Marini-Genzon, who describes her work as a constant search for meaning, it was inspiration.

“While creating sculptures and paintings, I try to suggest a story, not only of the moment but also of an entire life,” she says. “Not only of what we can see, but what is invisible.”

-- Pauline.OConnor@latimes.com

‘SILENT WITNESS’

WHERE: Topanga Canyon Gallery, 120 Pine Tree Circle, Topanga

WHEN: Reception, 4-7 p.m. Sat.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-

Sat, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun.; ends June 1.

INFO: (310) 455-7909, topangacanyongallery.com

‘SILENCE’

WHERE: Tracy Park Gallery, 1431 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica

WHEN: Noon-7 p.m. Tue.-

Wed.; noon-7 p.m. Thu.-

Sat.; noon-10 p.m.; noon-

5 p.m. Sun.; ends May 31