ART REVIEW : NEW GALLERY IN LA JOLLA TAKES A DIFFERENT TACK

LA JOLLA —  La Jolla has a new gallery, one of many that have opened recently. But the Paris Green Gallery (7825 Fay Ave. in the Merrill Lynch Building) is not like the others. It shows genuine works of art, not imitations. It is an island of reality and quality in a sea of impressionistic fluff. The art it shows may not make you happy, but it is art authentically concerned with life as it is (the life of the soul and of the intelligence as well as of the body and the senses), not with life as many imagine it ought to be--sanitized and prettified, and preferably in pastels.

The program of the gallery, owned by Robert Dinnerman, who recently closed the Photography Gallery, is to bring emerging artists from New York, Europe and wherever gallery director Jill Moon scouts them to San Diego.

Paris Green’s inaugural exhibition, titled, “New Work From New York,” features the works of three young artists: painter Philip Tsiaris, sculptor Polly Apfelbaum and photographer Elliot Schwarz.

The show, however, really belongs to Tsiaris. His works fill the walls of the main gallery, and they are, frankly, the most compelling.

Tsiaris is an all-around artist. He is a published poet who won an award from the American Academy in 1975. He is also an exhibited photographer of considerable merit. For the last six years, he has been a prolific painter as well. But perhaps Philip Tsiaris is most of all, as critic Nicolas Moufarrege has written, “an ancient Greek actor.” He has worn several masks--poet, photographer, painter--but he is still an artist.

The tradition of Greek Orthodox Christianity, which influences Tsiaris, is ancient, although not well-known in the United States.

Tsiaris expresses himself totally in his art as an intelligent and sensual man with strong feelings, and as a thoughtful heir of the Western tradition in its entirety. He expresses his sophistication as a privileged American, reared in comfort in New England and educated at Amherst College. He expresses what is current in New York and seeks, he has said, more than wealth, the approbation of his peers. But he also expresses his Macedonian Greek heritage, the tenaciousness of the family and its values. An additional influence is Greco-American artist Lucas Samaras, whom Tsiaris regards as his mentor.

Tsiaris reminds us that the daimon, or creative urge, was pagan before it was Orthodox. The vitality of his works now on view at the Paris Green Gallery, mostly paintings on paper, is nearly palpable. There is no languorous lyricism here but an aggressive energy that at one extreme conveys a sense of erotic fundamentalism and at the other a sense of spiritual ecstasy, perhaps even hysteria.

The artist’s imaginary portraits with primitivistic and hallucinatory distortions in a full palette of colors and metallics are bold compositions that evince both considered control and improvisatory enthusiasm. Decorative motifs like dots, circles and squiggles further energize his strong lines and masses of color.

There is the sureness of a mature artist who knows what he wants to do and does it. There is also the freshness of the untutored--of children, the mad and the naive, for whose work French master Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut. Tsiaris prides himself on being self-taught.

One of the weirdest and most appealing among the works exhibited is “Long Face No. 2,” a demonic green visage with a penile nose, three pairs of eyes diminishing in size from top to bottom, and one hole of a mouth but two pairs of lips askew. It is a fabulous and scary image.

So is “Politburo,” with faces for eyes, a third eye in the forehead and three pairs of lips in increasing size from top to bottom. The artist’s use of gold enhances its icon-like character, but this is the image of a demon of the present not a saint of the past.

Three large paintings and a table-like sculpture--a painting in three dimensions--with collaged bits of newspaper, written words and phrases (“The artist is still a poet”) and drawn historical references are, like the smaller works, syncretic statements of a culture mediated through a personality.

Polly Apfelbaum’s small, minimal, wood sculptures in an adjacent space are an elegant counterpoise to Tsiaris’ paintings.

Elliot Schwarz’s photographs are dramatic, slick and gratuitous.

The show continues through Sept. 27.