Sharon Ellis

For the artist bent on fabricating a cosmology, the four seasons make an irresistible motif that affords the opportunity not merely to invent culture, but to invent nature--as if it were one's own. At Christopher Grimes Gallery, Sharon Ellis joins an august company with a spectacular suite of paintings on this theme. Ellis has lately become known for her kaleidoscopic abstractions.

Sharon Ellis makes paintings that function as an intense polemic in favor of empirical, intuitive experience as expressed through a work of art. In the 10-year survey of Ellis' work that opened Sunday at the Long Beach Museum of Art, her ecstatic, highly refined, chromatically brilliant visual essays on time, the seasons and the visual power of decorative pattern are on view. Obliqueness trumps didactic instruction, language is subsumed within inchoate modes of feeling.

Sharon Ellis lives in a treehouse. At least it seems that way; her redwood cabin is set high enough above street level that its windows look above the treetops to the sun-dappled Silver Lake Reservoir. That view from the living room is a good thing, since Ellis clocks eight hours a day there, painting her radiant otherworldly canvases. Each painting requires about four months to complete.

Sharon Ellis lives in a treehouse. At least it seems that way; her redwood cabin is set high enough above street level that its windows look above the treetops to the sun-dappled Silver Lake Reservoir. That view from the living room is a good thing, since Ellis clocks eight hours a day there, painting her radiant otherworldly canvases. Each painting requires about four months to complete.

Sharon Ellis makes paintings that function as an intense polemic in favor of empirical, intuitive experience as expressed through a work of art. In the 10-year survey of Ellis' work that opened Sunday at the Long Beach Museum of Art, her ecstatic, highly refined, chromatically brilliant visual essays on time, the seasons and the visual power of decorative pattern are on view. Obliqueness trumps didactic instruction, language is subsumed within inchoate modes of feeling.

"Evocations: Sharon Ellis 1991-2001," opening today at the Long Beach Museum of Art, surveys a decade of the artist's visionary landscapes. Left: "The Four Seasons."

* "Times of the Day"--Sharon Ellis' paintings examine light throughout the day at Christopher Grimes Gallery through April 3. * "Fields of Peace"--George Tice's photos of Amish life go on display Saturday at Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica. * "Augustine Lovato"--Traditional jewelry by the Santo Domingo artist remain at Southwest Museum through May 2.

Humane society members are picketing a bar for promoting bear wrestling between bar patrons and a trained bear named Ceasar. Capital Area Humane Society members picketed Bootleggers tavern, handing out leaflets to patrons and protesting the bar's sponsorship of the wrestling bear. "It's not a good idea for the bear," said Sharon Ellis, vice president of the group. "We're afraid that if the bear attacks somebody, it might be destroyed."

Hunter Drohojowska-Philp's profile on Sharon Ellis made me smile ("Seeing the Light Within," by Feb. 21). I too have drawn since childhood and graduated UC Irvine eight years prior. A good education, but anyone who came in making images that were recognizable or allegorical would have to have that expunged in favor of the minimal/conceptual practices of the day. It took me eight years to run through such concept/theory practices and realize that to make this a lifelong pursuit I had to rethink what art was to me and train myself how to do it. I've seen one of Ellis' paintings and she has taught herself well.

4:30pm Movie Freebie The Art Directors Guild Film Society and the UCLA Film and Television Archive team up for a tribute to famed art director Carroll Clark. The day begins with a symposium on "The Art of the RKO Musical." Following a reception, they'll screen the classic 1935 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical "Top Hat." Tribute to Art Director Carroll Clark, UCLA, James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, near Sunset Boulevard and Hilgard Avenue, Westwood. Symposium, 4:30 p.m. Reception, 6 p.m.

For the artist bent on fabricating a cosmology, the four seasons make an irresistible motif that affords the opportunity not merely to invent culture, but to invent nature--as if it were one's own. At Christopher Grimes Gallery, Sharon Ellis joins an august company with a spectacular suite of paintings on this theme. Ellis has lately become known for her kaleidoscopic abstractions.

Christopher Knight states that L.A.-based artist Lari Pittman has "arguably become the most significant American painter of his generation" ("Faces to Watch in '96," Jan. 7). "Arguably" is right. Knight must be joking! His assessment would be laughable were it not so naive. Pittman's brand of commentative pop art is anything but significant, since it merely regurgitates worn themes and cliched juxtapositions that have already been seen and used ad nauseam. The attributes which would qualify a painter's work as truly significant, i.e. a unique vision realized with an awe-inspiring technique, these traits are completely lacking in Pittman's work (the only local work that might qualify as significant in this sense is that of Sharon Ellis)