Mary Mitsuda's "Veils," an acrylic on canvas, "looks spontaneous, but it's all planned out," says David Behlke, director of the Koa Gallery where Mitsuda is showing her work with Lori Uyehara through Thursday. "The piece appeals to both sides of the brain. Its colors and tones appeal to the right side of the brain, while its structure, lines and values appeal to the left side."

Exploring nature

IF not for the earth tones of their pieces, which provide a visual cohesiveness, the joint art show by Mary Mitsuda and Lori Uyehara would at first glance seem an incongruous mix of style.

Mitsuda's classical abstract offerings hanging on the walls stand in sharp contrast to Uyehara's free-standing wooden constructions, full of knots and curves and links of hooks and screws.

Yet David Behlke, director of the Koa Gallery at Kapiolani Community College, where the show is being held through Thursday, calls the women's works complimentary. "They explore similar concerns," he says.

Mitsuda's "Forecast" is a piece about weather conditions. In another work, "Relic," she explores the effects of rust on a steel canvas. Mitsuda dripped water onto the metal to create rust patterns. The finished product looks like layers of earth, and one gets "a sense of the time it takes to make fertile soil," Behlke says. "Mary's works are about process."

"Timeline," by Uyehara, is a mixed media work.

Behlke says Uyehara's artistry in conveying the beauty of wood is in her light touch. "Sometimes she sands the wood. Other times, she just peels the bark back and then leaves it alone," he says.

In "Fragile Chorus," Uyehara pieces together nubs of various types of wood that are scraps from a friend's woodshop. The work comprises everything from koa to Christmas trees, "woods from around the world," Behlke says.

"Timeline," in which Uyehara employs painting as well as sculpture, reveals the artist's ecological concerns. The work documents extinct and vanishing bird species against a backdrop of a sunset, begging the question of the tenuous fate of these creatures.

In the end, Behlke says, "Lori asks more questions than she resolves."

Koa Gallery is located at Kapiolani Community College. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. Call 734-9374.

A closeup of Uyehara's "Fragile Chorus."

"Forecast," by Mitsuda.