Mark Quint Gallery’s summer group show, a...

SAN DIEGO —  Mark Quint Gallery’s summer group show, a very choice selection of paintings, sculptures and prints, enhances the wide reputation that the gallery (664 9th Ave.) has earned. The quality is consistently high, even with the inclusion of works by a new, untried artist.

The most impressive single work, because of its beauty, complexity and scale, is “Sirene, Vespero, Poeta Occidentale” by Italian artist Mimmo Paladino, whose works have been seen previously at Quint. Measuring 7 by 12 feet, it is, of all things, a triptych of prints, three vast etchings with traditional Latin religious imagery.

In Paladino’s contemporary version of mystical space--the empyrean--appear the Immaculate Heart, a lamb, a gold crown, a bishop’s miter, crucifixes, a woman leading a horse and a dully red heart--not the valentine, but the human organ.

The meaning of the work remains an enigma despite the presence of these traditional symbols. And translation of the title--”Siren, Evening, Western Poet”--does not clarify the matter. It is mysterious and engrossing, a magnificent work of art.

Among the other works exhibited are Kenneth Capps’ rolled steel drawings; Ernest Silva’s “box”; “Fire and Clouds,” in which red trees like anguished, gesticulating human figures, are grouped around a burning log on a purple field against a blue sky filled with scudding, horse-like yellow clouds; a complexly beautiful painting and a monumental cubist-related sculpted head by Italo Scanga; a life-size painting of a young man stooping in front of a wall by David Baze, and a great glob of gold-colored pigment on a small canvas, a sensual, reductive, visual poem by Richard Allen Morris.

Works by Roy McMakin, Robert Janz, Joe Clower and Kim MacConnel recapitulate part of the gallery’s history.

An artist new to the gallery is Linda Ross with three small representational drawings (9 by 12 inches) in mixed media. Combining ostensibly disharmonious images, including recycled art-historical classics, they are skillfully made, intelligent, imaginative and, above all else, beautiful statements.

The exhibit continues through Aug. 30.

Spectrum (744 G St.), the artists’ membership gallery, is running another exhibit with a gimmick. Earlier this summer, viewers were invited to write down their comments about artworks on display. The results were often amusing and sometimes poetically insightful.

This show consists of works by members and their guests. It’s a big, crowded show with few embarrassments and some works of great beauty and strength, the kind of show that makes you appreciate Spectrum for its role in the art community.

Some personal favorites are the contemporary polychrome jewelry, really small sculptures or reliefs, by Rosemary Boost; the black ceramic pots by Eileen Gudmundson and Roberta Klein; the expressive figurative painting of Nancy Kittredge; the basketry of Polly Giacchina; the elegant ceramics of Florence Cohen; the exquisite pencil drawing of Jean Swigget; the collage of Barbara Weldon; and the sensual flower photography of Roger Camp.

And there are many other works of merit, including those by San Diego classics W.H. Wojtyla, Ellen Phillips and Dottie Korn-Davis.

The show continues through Sept. 5.

Phenomneon (917 E St.), the recently opened gallery that specializes in art made with neon, is for its first solo exhibit featuring the works of San Diego-based artist Gary Fey.

Fey, who is well known for hand-painted silks, combines lengths of the richly colored, complexly patterned fabric with lengths of neon light to create innovatively decorative installations.

Most often he drapes the fabric over the tubes, opposing its suppleness to the rigid form, but seductive color, of the neon. He also hangs a panel of silk in front of horizontal or around vertically installed tubes to create soft wall reliefs and sculptures.

The diffusion of light around and through the fabric is beautiful during daylight hours but more effective at night.

Scheduled for a short run, the exhibit continues through Aug. 16.

The exhibit of multipartite paintings by Robert Smith at the Michael Dunsford Gallery (828 G St.) has been extended through Aug. 30.

Smith, who won first prize in painting in the national Art Quest competition earlier this year, has commented on his symbolic works using bird and other images, “They’re about the border area where Mexico and the United States come together. They’re about the two different kinds of magic that we use. Ours is technology and industry. Theirs is about something else that goes all the way back to the Aztecs. For example, in Mexico a woman who wants a perfect husband buys hummingbirds’ heads that she wraps in red silk threads. By putting images from the two cultures next to one another, I want to represent a process of healing through their different magics.”

The San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park has extended the “Dr. Seuss from Then to Now” exhibit through Aug. 17.

After closing here, it will travel to seven other museums throughout the country.