Urban Dread

Seasonal timing, not to mention timing of the in-house variety, plays a role in the Lankershim Art Center exhibition, “A Mystery Show.”

Halloween is in the air, and the play “Tainted Blood” is running in the theater upstairs from the ground-floor gallery.

But the different definitions encoded in the art are hardly of the seasonal, made-to-order variety. If anything, the message is that each artist brings to the table his or her own private demons or puzzles to solve.

Noted assemblage artist Roland Reiss was the juror behind this selection, and his provocative creations, at once subtle, elaborate and surreal, speak well of his credentials.

Fittingly, in the gallery’s entryway, we see photographs of his assemblage series under the title “Murder Mystery.”

These pieces offer further evidence that Reiss’ curious fabrications and vignettes play well in Hollywood by appealing to a sense of the fantastic, while engaging in art’s deeper questions and contextual tomfoolery.

The overall theme is mystery, as conjured up by resident artists in the print medium. But there’s also skulduggery, investigations into urban angst, religious themes and winking dark humor.

In most cases, the status quo is in peril. In Belle Osipow’s “Flower and Evil,” women shop at a flower stand while a businessman is drolly impaled by a dagger, and blood red lines emanate from the wound. Or consider the plight of the man sucked into an unexplained energy vortex in Jochen Stucke’s strangely compelling “Owls and Guenons I.”

Ambiguity takes on a particular tangy flavor in another of the show’s best works, Masha Schweitzer’s “Family Album,” a strained family portrait in which members appear caught unawares, their snarling dog staring us down.

The unfinished, fuzzy areas of the image accent the idea of a vulnerable emotional state at the core.

Evil is on the prowl again in “Man in the Garden,” by Anita Klebanoff, with its shadowy, fleeting figure lurking in a backyard, stoking paranoia. We’re not sure what to make of Elaine Brandt’s “Scene of the Crime,” in which a lifeless blond victim is seen as if in a semitransparent haze, a ghost or possibly a figment of the imagination of someone who watches too much TV.

In other pieces, urban dread isn’t so much the subject as hobgoblins of the mind and/or soul. Sometimes, mysterious convergence of imagery defies logic or common sense.

William Kitchens’ “Shaman” finds a hermaphroditic figure with a beast’s head in a hallway, the meticulous draughtsmanship adding to the weird, metaphorical intrigue.

Kitchens also shows another pristinely rendered foray into the domain of dreams with “Dangerous Sofa,” in which a bucket of blood-like fluid appears ready to douse a levitating sofa.

Churches, those venerable bastions of mystery, are visited by the artists as well, often seen in elliptical fragments that provoke responses of uncertainty.

Carolyn Farris is content to deal with the presence of an ornate column.

Teresa Zepeda’s “Trinity” offers nothing more mysterious or menacing than the looming wall of a Gothic church, viewed from below with a touch of foreboding. Michael Voors’ view of “St. Agostino” lures us into its simple scheme by dint of its tiny scale, barely bigger than a credit card, but carrying a big persona.

From the comic relief department, Paul A. Feldhaus’ “It’s Not Easy to Keep a Wart Hog Wrapped” finds the creature in question elaborately bandaged, held fast in clothespins. No, the task is not an easy one. The mystery element here: Why try?

Also on the lighter side is “BAM,” Diane McLeod’s explosion of color swirling around a pair of goofy, bean-shaped silhouettes of faces.

We’re left with the task of deciphering the force underlying the explosive image, whether love, rage or some other renewable brand of mystery.

BE THERE

“A Mystery Show,” through Nov. 22 at Lankershim Art Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursday-Saturday, 3-6:30 p.m.; (818) 752-2682.