DOWNTOWN

Add Ralph Steadman’s grotesque illustrations to Hunter S. Thompson’s Gonzo journalism, plus doses of Dali-esque Surrealism, Japanese comic books and classical Renaissance engraving, and you have a rough idea of Stuart Ellis’ drawings. Working primarily in pastel and pen and ink, Ellis creates political and social satires using symbolic and metaphorical free association. He starts at a given point on the blank page, then allows the intuitive process to take over, so that figurative and landscape forms mutate and metamorphose like a viral cell under a microscope.

Thus “Mother Earth at Round Table” depicts a monstrous figure with three noses and mouths presiding over a round table (a symbol of egalitarian decision making), as a putrescent globe is raped by a missile-man against a backdrop of smoking volcanoes. While most of Ellis’ nightmare imagery suspends logic in favor of a free-form chain of irrational cause and effect, his real-world targets are invariably easy ones: military-industrial warlords and capitalist “fat cats.” Although this lack of subtlety tends to rob the work of much of its political teeth, the real key to enjoying Ellis’ twisted vision is not to analyze but rather allow the eye to roam and transcend clear narrative logic. By attempting to read concept, meaning and form into the irrational we merely turn it into yet another homogenized myth. (James Turcotte Gallery, 3517 W. 6th St., to Feb. 28.)