ART REVIEW : WORKS OF SYMBOLISM IN DOWNEY MUSEUM EXHIBIT

‘Art Symbols,” at the Downey Museum of Art through Feb. 15, is a collection of six little solo shows in search of a connection. The stated one--symbolism--is so imprecise that it seems non-existent.

In Webster’s language, a symbol is “something that stands for another thing” or “an object used to represent something abstract”--say, the dove of peace or the first flowers of spring. In art, symbolism is so indigenous, pervasive and varied that definitions are a bit more complicated.

Several centuries of religious art have been loaded with meanings, attributed to painted details, subjects and human gestures. Late 19th-Century artists who actually called themselves Symbolists have mooned over sin and death, longed for the unattainable and set forth the femme fatale as the personification of dangerous beauty. Surrealists have explored the strange twists of Freudian symbolism.

Colors and shapes have been equated with feelings or ideas throughout history. Today, emblems, objects and even brush strokes are ascribed private meanings, while--thanks to Jasper Johns--the traditionally symbolic American flag has come to stand for modernist values.

Symbolism is a big, vague territory, tough to deal with in a small exhibition unless a portion of it is circumscribed. The present exercise, organized by Lukman Glasgow, skirts around the theme so erratically that thoughtful viewers are left to puzzle over an illogical aggregation of artworks.

The most resonant work resides in the back gallery, where John Rand shows drawings and paintings of fuel tanks and water towers. These industrial images--isolated on graph paper in fine-tuned drawings or incorporated in urban-landscape paintings--are ominously evocative symbols of man-handled natural power. Smooth contours and dull gray shells mask potentially dangerous forces and contrast sharply with blue skies, a pink bird and other bits of healthy nature.

A whole show might have been fashioned around the symbolism of Industrial-Age or technology-related images. Instead, “Art Symbols” wanders off in half a dozen directions.

David Settino Scott sets mundane contemporary themes in the format and style of pre-Renaissance paintings. We see “The Birth of Pasta” accompanied by angels in an arched painting and “The Blessing of Cioppino” in a triptych. In “The Pouring of the Oil,” cloaked figures journey through an oil field and visit a filling station. These situations--generally addressed to gluttony and commercialism-- sound more amusing than they look because they are poorly painted. John Swihart has treated this sort of historical overlay much more deftly.

One might deduce from her acrylic-on-paper abstractions that Jillian Stewart is interested in the conflict between chaos and order. A posted statement confirms this and states that she has developed a system of symbols to represent these opposing forces. Order takes the form of borders and central triangles, while chaos is shown through energy fields and quivering patterns. In the same gallery, Bill Wheeler shows lyrical, torn-edge collographs, which he says have a “personal and ambiguous” symbolism.

Doug Webb’s silly Photo-Realist paintings are primarily concerned with Surrealist juxtapositions and switches of scale and context. When he is concerned with symbolism--which isn’t often--he pokes fun at images of power. His visual one-liners depict such improbable scenes as hula hoops encircling Los Angeles City Hall (“Child’s Play”) and San Francisco’s Transamerica pyramid emerging from a banana peel (“Fruits of Labor”).

Richard R. Roehl makes slick assemblages that attempt a desperate merger of latter-day Surrealist humor, social criticism and fetishistic craftsmanship. His purest statement, a gold- and chrome-plated metal sculpture called “American Gothic,” reduces Grant Wood’s famous painting to a cartoon-like pair of flat feet that sprout his and hers pitchforks.

Wood’s painting is so well known and often mistreated that it has come to symbolize everything from artwork-as-cliche to the Protestant work ethic. In caricaturing it, Roehl joins a lengthy list of people who have both added to and detracted from its original meaning.

The museum is open from noon to 5 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays.