Flower seeds to junk mail

Artists from all over country contribute
to an unusual exhibit at Long Beach Arts

by Shirle Gottlieb
Special to U-Entertainment

When a call went out for entries to Long Beach Arts' annual "Open National Exhibition," 257 artists responded from all over the United States. From that whopping number, juror Jim Morphesis (award-winning artist/educator) selected 68 pieces to be in the show.

That many works are more than the LBA gallery can comfortably accommodate, but Morphesis justified it all when he wrote: "While I wish more art could have been included, this LBA exhibit represents the energy, the high quality of concept and execution and the positive nature found in entries from throughout the country."

"OPEN NATIONAL EXHIBITION" Where:Long Beach Arts, 245 W. Broadway, Long Beach When: Noon-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; through Dec. 18 Admission: Free Information: (562) 435-5995

Obviously there was method in his madness for including so many pieces in this extraordinary show.

First place was awarded to Karen Brown for "Sic Transit," a mind-boggling series of 36 sets of multiple images of a delicately painted flower seed floating through the summer air.

Frank Ramme won second place for a disturbing oil on acrylic on canvas on panel called "Skinners Box Came on My B-day." Full of enigmatic symbols (spiders, toilets, bluebirds), it depicts two androgynous males — one with a pierced tongue and bald head, the other, a frightened young blond with a halo around his head.

Third place went to Julia Goodman for "Singing in the Rain." Tacked to the wall are eight floor-to-ceiling panels composed from junk mail collected by Goodman over an eight-week period. Each panel is decorated with drawings of a female figure with an umbrella climbing over mountains of mail that grow progressively taller.

Do plan to stay a while because there is much to see and contemplate, in every style imaginable, no matter which way you turn.

For contrast, check out Sherri McEuen's bronze cubist-inspired sculpture of "Genesis' and compare it to "Contemplation," Leon Leigh's welded steel sculpture of an elongated, emaciated figure.

Or read Heidi Khatami's miniature many-word manifesto (in the shape of a Y-chromosome topped by an apple) and compare it to Robert Morgan's explosive painting, "Boom," where title, style and composition are synonymous.

For pathos, check out Patrick Quinn's narrative sculpture of a weeping skeleton bound in wire covered with nostalgic family photographs of himself and his family, now presumably dead. Nearby you'll find Leah Oshann's abstract sculpture of spirals within spirals that form a "Cacophony' of silent sounds.

Always the jester, Hy Farber is represented by a comical laminated plywood head that opens up to reveal "An Open Mind," while Mahara T. Sinclaire's unstretched wall-sized canvas is covered with boldly colored "Alice in Wonderland' characters that are threatening and foreboding.

Sylvia Torres has created a lovely diptych that consists of lyrical brown/russet/ocher brushwork that evokes the leaves and twigs of "Early Morn." Bob White has cut a photograph of "Nasturtiums & Building' into 20 squares and reassembled them. And Walton McNulty has painted a delightful "Cactus Blossom' (surrounded by pointillist treatment of the desert) that almost covers the entire canvas.

Martin V. Garcia used his palette knife to create the thick pigment and tactile surface of his colorful "Oceans Garden'; Tick Weber captured the sky's luminous atmosphere in his view "From the Palos Verdes'; and if you stand back and squint, you can see a tiger's face in Peter Eble's abstract expressionistic painting of "Sigfried."

— Shirle Gottlieb is a Long Beach freelance writer.