Artistic Hodgepodge

From its loaded title, you would think the current Art City show is theme driven. But have no fear, “Sign of the Times, Visions in a New Era” is neither a grandiose exegesis on the turn of the millennium nor does it tackle any other specific social agenda.

It’s just a happy hodgepodge of work by local artists, in various media and with various issues on their minds.

Group shows are a common and welcome sight in the Art City Gallery. One difference this time is that the artists gathered into the fine, rustic art space come not only from the Art City cohort but other corners of the community.

To risk paraphrasing our linguistically challenged new president, it seems to be a show about unity. That, in the end, may be the show’s theme, intentional or not.

In fact, the title comes from the artist currently known as Schaf, whose photography has been frequently seen around the county.

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His work, in general, has neatnik and openly nostalgic qualities that might seem contrary to the rougher stuff we are accustomed to seeing at Art City, but the series that he calls “Sign’age” involves both dreamy photographs of signs--from Egyptian ruins to Nebraskan road signs--and clockworks fashioned from funky found objects with rusty and crinkled metal.

Around these parts, art from rusty metal is reflexively associated with Eric Richards, whose piece “Wish Fulfilling Jewel” finds a figure, sitting in the lotus position and cradling a prized, smoothly rounded stone. Richards’ witty, strangely fascinating “Weather Vane” is a large, flat work depicting a man, horse and dog.

Each figure is perforated with recurring cut-out images--hands on the horse, horseshoes on the man, and bones on the dog, making the canine the most at peace with his inner self, one assumes.

The sign theme reappears in a surprising place. Sculptor and Art City founder Paul Lindhard, who is usually content to refer to anatomy and nature with his hardy work, shows “Indicator,” a wood-and-stone sculpture with large arrows pointing in equal, opposite directions.

This “indicator” is a democratic signpost or an ode to Frank Baum’s baffled scarecrow.

Lindhard thinks big in scale while courting simplicity in form. Gordon Punt goes in the opposite direction with his whimsical piece “Scream,” no relation to the famous angst fest of Edvard Munch’s painting.

Here, a tiny bronze of a female nude is found in mid-howl, clutching angrily at her hair.

In the piece, the contrast of its delicate scale and the extroverted gesture makes for a funny cognitive dissonance.

Post-conceptualist Paul Benavidez’s art has veered across multiple directions and media over the years, so it’s apt that assorted tidbits of his work are slapped onto a makeshift panel hanging from the rafters.

A series of small framed photographs captures quotidian scenes with a scattershot casualness, while more intensity is poured into a portrait of M.B. Hanrahan, whose work is also displayed, and a “Self-Portrait” adorned with tendrils of melted plastic.

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Charles Fulmer’s nudes are done up with a light, infectious glee. Fauvist and Cubist touches are tossed in, but without pretension, resulting in figures splashed in a candy-colored palette and drawn in loopy lines.

Wyndra Roche’s paintings “Swamped” and “Plum Tree” are simple, invitingly brusque inventions that allude to nature and abstract Expressionism.

In his own way, that same blend also describes the paintings of Gerd Koch, whose “Mystical Volcanic Rocks at CSUCI” represents local color that has been revisited and effectively mystified.

Why not find epiphanies in Camarillo as well as in a landscape of Greco-Roman antiquities or a remote outpost of nature?

DETAILS

“Sign of the Times, Visions in a New Era,” through Feb. 4 at Art City, 33 Peking Street, Ventura. Gallery hours: Wed. through Sun., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 648-1690.