ART : Shadow Boxing : Printmaker and computer artist Dona Geib discovers structural beauty in discarded pieces of cardboard.

Ever since printmaker Dona J. Geib was a student at Cal State Northridge in the early ‘70s, her favorite stomping ground has been the garbage bins behind retail stores, especially liquor stores.

It is there that she finds corrugated cardboard boxes and box dividers that have been the subject matter of her two-dimensional and three-dimensional prints for nearly 20 years.

“Structurally they are absolutely beautiful sculptures. I adore their form,” Geib said. “What captured me is looking into those trash barrels and seeing all the shadows cast by all those boxes and dividers dumped on top of each other.”

For the first 10 years, Geib created etchings on museum board that replicated (although usually in a larger scale) a found box in a two-dimensional form. Often, she would cut these prints up and put them together in three-dimensional box forms.

But beginning in 1985, when she became involved with the California Museum of Science and Industry’s “Creative Computer” program, she also has been making prints of boxes on a computer.

More than 15 of her computer-generated images, most of them never seen before, are on view at the Art Store Gallery in Studio City in the show “Bytes Without Acid.” The title refers to the fact that these works are not prints made from the traditional etching process, which uses nitric acid to etch a zinc plate.

“We try to make the gallery a community service--a place where local artists can show their work,” said Robert Douglas, store manager. “Dona’s process was interesting. It has an industrial look to it.”

Geib creates a still-life with her 3-D prints, and then scans them into the computer using a single-frame video camera. Flattened out inside the computer into a two-dimensional format, she has the freedom to enlarge, shrink, rotate or clone her images.

“The great thing about computers is they keep track of everything. I can put layer upon layer on a print,” Geib said. “The computer has also allowed me to get some gorgeous, particularly bright, intense colors.

“My digitally reworked and assisted images of boxes, dividers and crates become that dilapidated apartment house on the corner . . . or possibly the high-rises from a future 21st Century in Los Angeles.”

Instead of the traditional zinc plate or the lithograph stone, the computer floppy disc has become her master plate for digital ink jet, heat transfer and thermal wax prints.

“Sections,” an image that calls to mind a single-story building, combines the sense of dilapidation with a futuristic “architecture.” The rounded “Eclipse” refers not to a box, but to Geib’s feelings about last year’s solar eclipse, which she witnessed in Hawaii.

“It was a beautiful experience,” she said.

Geib has enhanced this computer print with 24-karat gold leaf.

A few prints in the show, including “3 Box,” have been generated on an Iris ink jet printer, a high-quality printer that will print on any kind of paper, including archival paper.

For these prints, Geib sent her floppy disc to Harvest Productions in Anaheim, one of the few places in the area with an Iris printer. Geib said computer enthusiasts David Hockney and Graham Nash each have their own.

As the printing technology for computer art improves, images can appear like sharply focused photographs. Geib prefers the rougher quality generally associated with computer-generated prints.

“I love the textures of the pixels, the tiny dots of color. In a high-resolution print, there are millions of dots, so they fool the eye and you don’t see them,” she said. “Low-resolution doesn’t fool the eye. It looks like a tapestry. Pixels have the look of a stitch. All my work has that textured look, like a tapestry.”

Where and When What: “Dona J. Geib: Bytes Without Acid.” Where: Art Store Gallery, 11450 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays, through Jan. 11. Reception for the artist 6 to 9 tonight. Classes: Various artists including Geib teach computer art techniques through the Museum of Science and Industry’s “Creative Computer” exhibit and program. Call (213) 744-2526. Call: (818) 505-1383 for information about the exhibit.