by Garrison Frost

Does it make any kind of difference that the last several times we have visited the Palos Verdes Art Center for an exhibition, we have had the galleries all to ourselves? If this were a quaint gift shop off the main drag or a new Thai place without a beer and wine license, that that might bode ill. But given what ones hears about the PVAC lately – the successful fund-raisers, the membership drives, the expansion plans – the place seems to be doing just fine. So when we pull the car into the empty parking lot and walk across the hot asphalt to the front door, the experience is usually hopeful. We want the place all to ourselves. The better to see what's inside.

What's inside through Aug. 16 is the 2003 All Media Juried Exhibition, which usually has a guest curator. This year's honors were performed by Joe Smoke, director of grants for the city of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. Smoke has created a fairly mixed bag of artwork in all different media for this exhibit. Some works well, some doesn't. Some looks like it was created in an adult school art class or recreation department painting studio, but some stands out as being from a higher class.

Probably our favorite piece in the show is an oil painting by Joseph Gerges of a dark storm. Although it depicts natural phenomenon, the painting carries a real emotional weight on its back. Frankly, it's a bit frightening. Another piece that caught our attention was "On Broadway," a pastel work on paper by Nancy Popenoe. This blurred vision really seems to catch a feeling of the street. Although one of the figures in the street scene is carrying an umbrella, and the distortion of the image might suggest rain, to our mind the piece depicts the glaring distortion of Los Angeles sunlight. Our figure with the umbrella might just as well be trying to catch some shade. Either way, the painting definitely exudes an "L.A. feeling."

A few mixed media pieces also stood out, although with stuff like this it's hard to distinguish whether the parts are more of an attraction than the way the artist has presented them. Such is definitely the situation with "Facts and Figures" by Kelly McMahon. The piece is really just a great old sample portfolio in leather and metal that the artist has filled with small enigmatic figure drawings and paintings. One can't help look at the thing, but really that just might be because we wish we had been the ones to find it at the flea market. Then there's "YAB-YUM BOOM" by Eva Kolosvary-Stupler, an assemblage containing an old wooden box, a old science class human figure and a small statuette of a buddha getting it on. Not sure what it means, but fun to look at. Probably the most creative of the mixed media works is Michael Hankin's "Who Carves Stone," a small shadowbox containing a timepiece juxtaposed with a shell, fishing tackle and some astrological imagery. Hankin is definitely out for something here involving time and the sea and the viewer gets it, even if he or she can't articulate it.

Another piece in the show that we enjoyed was Haegil Lee's "Self Portrait," which is really just an oil landscape of a forested lakeside. Only Lee has done something interesting here by carving out a section, moving it off kilter, and painting the same image in black and white. The result is a shattered view of an image that should be contemplative and benign. Obviously there is no person in the picture as the title would indicate, but the image shows us a way of seeing that is indeed much more personal and evocative.

(August 9, 2003)

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