Review: ‘The Left Coast’ is a disjointed meditation on California

Bottom line: Underdeveloped ideas and work that veers from compelling and well-executed to tentative and unengaging make for a disjointed show.

California as a place and as an idea looms large in artist Nancy VanDevender's show at Poem 88.

In video works, photographs and mixed-media pieces, VanDevender paints a picture of California as a place defined by the manicured oasis of the swimming pool and the coastline that gives the state its sense of paradisiacal possibility. Those human-built and natural sanctuaries are contrasted with the parched, lonely desert surveyed in a 28-minute video, “Like a String of Pearls, California Dreaming.” The video documents a drive from Palm Springs to a former Hollywood film set called Pioneertown with a camera trained on the landscape of mountains, desert flatland, concrete bungalows and wind turbines as far as the eye can see.

That video is accompanied by another, “It Stops Me From Thinking,” a 15-second loop of a woman plunging into a swimming pool, the impact causing a rippling movement on the water’s surface that the artist lingers on. Stark geographic distinctions and contrasting landscapes defined by dry and wet, natural and manufactured, are the primary fixation in VanDevender’s solo show “The Left Coast” at Poem 88’s relocated space in the Floataway complex.

In a series of photographs printed on aluminum, VanDevender offers a corrective to all of that desert. The artist shows a small selection of both abstracted and more documentary views of water. There are images of beaches defined by towering rock formations and caves carved by erosion, where people congregate, drawn to the water. There are hazy, dreamlike views of a distant coastline dotted with the glowing lights of apartment buildings or hotels. In a series of more abstract photographs, VanDevender shoots the blue and green water surface and painted lane and depth markings in swimming pools. In another image, she stares out at the horizon and the blue-green ocean choked with seaweed.

The not especially compelling or evocative images don’t convey a vision of California as the mythic paradise of self-indulgence, enlightenment or natural beauty, but instead suggest impressionistic travel snapshots of particular places encountered.

VanDevender tends to do better when she moves away from the tentative ideas and documentary impulses seen in her videos and photographs, which don’t necessarily enrich our understanding of place, or convey VanDevender’s particular fascination.

More interesting are the photo-based prints she creates, in which the regional plant life of succulents and cactuses that also define the California desert landscape are turned into abstracted, decorative objects.

“Where Do You Think You Were Going” is a large 100-by-73-inch print created in three sections of blue-gray paper, like wallpaper. Tendrils of string of pearls succulents and the draping fronds of agave and palmetto take on the appearance of garlands and chandeliers in this dramatic work, as nature is transformed into ornament. It is easier to see VanDevender’s fascination with landscape here, to see its hypnotic, almost hallucinogenic effect. Another memorable work, blending photography and drawing, “Fire Walk With Me,” takes on a similarly psychedelic character and seems to better express the mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic appeal of California for the artist.

California is clearly alluring enough for VanDevender to spend her solo show examining its attractions. However, as seen through this artist’s lens, it may not be a compelling enough idea to hold a viewer’s interest. VanDevender’s focus feels opaque and disjointed, her ideas underdeveloped. Her visions of a place of physical and sensory contrasts don’t prove especially revealing in themselves.

There are issues with presentation as well. VanDevender’s video works, which command most of the gallery space, don’t integrate well with other work in the show and add to the exhibition’s overall tone of disconnection.