Diverse Talents on Display at Juried Show in Ventura

Every year, the Buenaventura Gallery mounts a juried competition, filling its walls with work by members of the hosting organization, the Buenaventura Art Assn. In a sense, the show is an extension of business as usual in the gallery, which normally showcases one artist in the back and a melange in the rest of the gallery.

This year’s show is a happy jumble, with highlights including Gerd Koch’s dramatic “Soul of Egypt” and Carlisle Cooper’s prismatic “Two Acrobats.” Roxy Ray’s painting “High Tide” presents an odd perspective of women’s legs in a pool, dematerialized by the water’s ripples. Betty Buckner’s “Windows of My Mind” veers toward Diebenkorn-like abstraction, with its composition segmented into forms and facets.

Other painters of note: watercolorist Joan Snyder, landscape-minded Leslie Wright, and Dennis Peterson, whose view of Ventura College is rendered surreal by a distorted color palette.

* 12th Annual Juried Competition, through Saturday at Buenaventura Gallery, 700 E. Santa Clara St., Ventura. Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday; 648-1235.

Going North: Tucked away in the back of Faulkner Gallery in the downtown Santa Barbara Public Library this month, we find the oddly compelling paintings of Joan Landis. Her series of paintings, realized in a simple and effective folk-art style and equipped with explanatory texts, traces her family lineage back to the old country in Sweden.

The Landis family tree includes a religious martyr executed for his beliefs and settlers making their way westward. This art for genealogy’s sake also tells tales in paint.

* Joan Landis, through Nov. 29 at Faulkner Gallery West, Santa Barbara Public Library, 40 W. Anapamu St. Hours: 1-5 p.m. Sunday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 962-7653.