What’s good at ‘California Visual Artists’? Decide for yourself

PAUL PITSKER’S “SUCKER”

Juried exhibitions are great if they don’t make a big deal about who won—and “California Visual Artists: An Open Exhibition” doesn’t. Comprising an open call for art, there’s something here to offend or appease almost anyone.

It’s an election year, so let’s quickly consider Tamara Carlin’s Grimm Reaper, an oil painting of an oil well against a setting sun, with a cemetery spread before it.

Have we seen this? Been told that Bush is bad? Yes we have, and so move along to Lynne McDaniel’s serene Through Their Eyes, her repainting of two portraits from The New Yorker—Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama—with their eyeballs switched. We’ve been told we’re all the same, too—but McDaniel makes us like it with these two political lions.

Similarly soothing is Alexis Abrams’ Afternoon Palms, a painting of cool green palm tree silhouettes dropped against yellow afternoon light. Can you have a California art show without palm trees? They’re just as non-native as our top three presidential contenders—but unlike the contenders, the palms will mostly never disappoint us. There’s a theme emerging: None of these works won so much as a mention from longtime director and art curator Jay Belloli, this show’s jury—so let’s stay with it, and consider the cartoony a study for poison the chicken, which reads like a poppy, uncluttered frame from Tony Millionaire’s Maakies.

It’s simultaneously easy and complicated: Two men in robes, one with his eyes padlocked shut, argue before what looks like a yardbird tribunal—and before them, a few fallen birds with x-es for eyes. Laughable, unless you’re a chicken. It’s not award-winning—but it’s funny! Come on!

Okay, fine—one winning entry: Ann Isolde, whose Golden Trout Wilderness Journey bridges the gap between traditional art forms and pop, with assorted trout life forms superimposed over beautifully rendered topographic maps of fishing holes. Like Mayberry, categorized and colorized. And very nice-looking.

CALIFORNIA VISUAL ARTISTS: AN OPEN EXHIBITION 2ND CITY COUNCIL GALLERY  435 ALAMITOS AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.901.0997 | 2NDCITYCOUNCIL.ORG | WED-SUN 12-5PM | THROUGH APRIL 10 | FREE

Tags: 2nd city council gallery, Long Beach, maakies, visual art