ART | REVIEW OC Weekly Vol. 4 No. 29 March 26 - April 1, 1999

Say Cheese! Still Praying For The Death Of Kitsch

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Unfortunately, there's nothing elitist about the Caged Chameleon. Even their prices are prole-friendly. "UM/ OM," a collaboration between Cal State Fullerton undergrads Eric Beltz and Aaron Gregory, takes the pleasing of people to new heights. Sincere kitsch--they mean it, man--covers the walls, sure to bring joy even to Midwesterners. Beltz's Two Cats features flat blue kitties on an orange background, as big-eyed as those '70s cartoon children. Clowns play guitar in outer space; Santa confronts the Christmas Angel of Death; teddy-bear banks create the world. The two bring forth the most absurd view of our planet we've maybe ever seen.

And the titles alone are worth the slim price tags: nobody at the opening could resist such pieces as Three Clowns Eating Candy and One Not and Wooden Bride With Explosion. Some of the pieces are gentle, such as ones in which happy skeletons in verdant woods eat big slices of watermelon. Others are terrifying, like Gregory's Grampa. In that one, a weeping tiger-headed goose lays an egg from which breaks forth a vamp-faced serpent. Grampa, young and hard-working before his idyllic rustic farmhouse, cries as he holds the serpent in his hand; it is dead or dying, bleeding from the mouth and cut to ribbons by bits of its own eggshell. Eh?The only weak links in the stunning sci-fi/realist exhibit are Gregory's many odes to himself. He paints himself nude and pretty as all get-out, intertwined lazily and deliciously with . . . himself. Perhaps he's excoriating his own vanity, but in either case, we don't really need to see what he thinks of himself. His thoughts on the cosmos around him are far more interesting. And where have we heard that before?

"UM/OM" at the Caged Chameleon Gallery, 1519 N. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 836-5137. Open Sat.-Sun., noon-4 p.m.; weekdays by appointment. Through April 11. Free.