Bergamot Station Hosts Diverse Exhibits

Brentwood may not contain a plethora of galleries or museums, but our little slice of Westside heaven is perfectly located within striking distance of a vast selection of visual art offerings. This week we explore Bergamot Station, that odd but enjoyable mini-mall of galleries off 26th Street and Michigan Avenue in Santa Monica. Most galleries offer 4- to 6-week exhibitions, and the quality runs from the sublime to the garish.

Through May 28, Luis de Jesus Gallery is exhibiting two very different artists: Gail Roberts and Robert Kushner. Roberts is a painter of extraordinary skill and mastery of the medium. Several large-scale canvases of bird nests fill the main gallery. Each nest is compositionally centered and set against a book with faintly legible text. There’s a tactile realism that makes the images slightly uncomfortable. On the metaphorical level, the nests are either abandoned or purposefully taken out of the context of their natural function. Either interpretation lends an air of morbidity to the proceedings.

Kushner is also a masterful painter of quite some international renown. Fabric patterns and flowers often do battle against geometric grounds of color and gold leaf.  The result is often the visual equivalent of a slow-motion kung fu action sequence but with beauty and elegance substituting for fists and feet.

Unapologetically decorative and in sincere search of beauty, Kushner's paintings goad the jaded art viewer into raptures of appreciation of kinesthetic pleasures.

De Jesus has a remarkable selection of portrait drawings by Kushner, who proves himself as successful with the light and judicious touch on paper as he does with the heavily worked canvas. The paper in question are collaged pages of music, text from faded antique books, Japanese prints, encyclopedias and a multitude of other source material.

The drawings are confident line sketches of men and women who stretch and relax into a sublime unawareness. Some yet not all figures are offset with a section of gold leaf patternation or more heavily reworked background.

The effect is mesmerizing as you lose the figure when examining the pages of notes and then regain the figure as you step back. Certain figures are all but invisible except from across the room. It makes for a kinetic art viewing experience of emotional resonance and narrative possibilities.

There is a cult of definition out there currently. In the world of 15 MB cameras and information immediacy, it is particularly refreshing to delve into the world of approximation. A few ink lines can conjure the likeness of a human face, but we bring character completion to the act of viewing by marrying line and text and pattern. And I suspect each person achieves a different synthesis.

Approximation of a different sort is on display at Craig Krull Gallery with the wonderful photographic portraits of Richard C. Miller. The artifice of the poses is singular. The models range from the famous (Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck and Jack Lemmon) to the anonymous but a synthesis is created by the artist’s eye. Miller took cues from glamorous promotional snapshots and infused each with an awkward resonance. The color examples in the exhibition also lend an air of surreality with their use of a carbo printing process that created colors that, while being accurate, ring false simultaneously. This pushes planes of color forward when they should recede. So the approximation on display at the Krull exhibit demonstrates that true art captures something that the naked eye cannot behold. It offers an alternative vision without a jarring postmodern alienation. A remarkable show.

Lastly, "The World of Elliot Erwitt" should not be missed at the newly moved and reinstalled Peter Fetterman Gallery. Erwitt, who was born in 1928, is a photographer of wit and charm. A member of the prestigious Magnum Agency, Erwitt has created a body of work that has, at its core, a compassion for his various subjects, be they dogs, old ladies, kissing couples or a fresh snowfall on Central Park. Visitors will be surprised how many images of his have entered the visual vocabulary of our century. Erwitt's images have been remarkably well-marketed with postcards and posters littering walls. But here’s the rub: They’re popular because they’re great.

Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “A cliché is simply an over-used truth.” The Fetterman exhibit gathers a fantastic collection of those truths and reminds you that to capture a fine moment might be luck but to consistently capture the human condition over a 60-year career with heart and laughter is nothing less than genius. Lastly, to see an image in reproduction, whether it is postcard, poster or Internet, is a far cry from seeing a silver gelatin print.

Gail Roberts and Robert Kushner at Luis De Jesus Gallery continues through May 28.

Richard C. Miller at Craig Krull Gallery runs May 11 - June 11. Reception is 4-6 p.m. Saturday.

Elliot Erwitt at Peter Fetterman Gallery continues through June 30.