Local artists showcased at PB library’s annual invitational show The Pacific Beach/Taylor Branch Library is spotlighting the artistic skills of dozens of local artists during its ninth annual Invitational Drawing Show. The impressive exhibit runs through April 30. The focus of this multi-media show is the refined art of drawing, and was originally conceived by visual arts librarian and exhibition curator Mark-Elliott Lugo. The show features 64 works by 14 established artists hailing from Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, La Jolla and elsewhere in San Diego. Lugo said the current show is the largest and most ambitious of the drawing shows to date. “The art of drawing is often misunderstood, and the current exhibit demonstrates what is possible,” Lugo said. “It encompasses a wide range of expression and speaks to a resurgence of drawing in the art world. Given the advent of new media and digital expression, there is a synergy of classic elements and techniques with unusual surfaces and unexpected media.” Jesus Dominguez’s “Poem Slips #2,” for example, challenges the traditional definition of drawing. He uses Prismacolor pencils on oriented strand board, working with the natural pattern to invoke a vibrant interplay of depth, motion and rhythm. “The series started as a recycling project using scraps of oriented strand board,” Dominguez said. “I saw intriguing artistic possibilities in the random patterns of the wood fragments that give the series its distinctive, variegated look.” Renowned artist Herbert Olds’ “Green, Gray, Pink: Secrets” provides an exceptional example of how a mature artist combines image and text. His complex narrative invokes the spirit of discovery. “Formally, my work evolves in the tension that exists between representation and abstraction,” Olds said. “It aims to complicate, rather than simplify. I try to create rich visual surfaces filled with as many elements as the form of the work and my imagination will allow. The idea, or content, grows naturally out of the act of drawing itself. That is to say, the drawings are not premeditated, they are discovered.” Todd Partridge, known for his furniture design, has a series of charcoal on gypsum-cement drawings that show traditional media on an untraditional surface. This series of plaster-cast tiles are surrounded by frame-like structures that are also cast in plaster, and present intriguing details that elevate “common” woodworking tools to objets d’art. “It is my hope that the viewer begins to gain a sense of my passion for the physicality of our world, and for the beauty in the materials and implements we use every day,” Partridge said The work of Ernest Silva, a respected visual arts department professor at the University of California, San Diego, combines drawing and painting, demonstrating their inherent relationship. His “Rogue’s Gallery Series” uses black acrylic paint on raw wood veneer, and one piece is reminiscent of a childlike Tin Man from “The Wizard of Oz.” “[My] work emphasizes the use of images to trigger speculation based on personal experience. The common denominators are the handmade, the emotive and the sense that they may have been imagined, drawn from art history, or recalled from memory. They can be read literally, but easily move to metaphor.” Robert Treat’s “Containment/Release” series combines charcoal and encaustic — or layers of pigmented wax — on Japanese paper. The elegant images are understated, even muted, and resonate with considerable depth. “These images are more analytical than they are intuitive, using the mental process of ‘contextualization’ by which we consciously place an object or line in relation to others,” said Treat. “They are structural, loosely influenced by architectural blueprint drawings.” There are other exceptional works in the show, like the work of black-and-white pencil artist Robert Nelson, who works in Pacific Beach and La Jolla resident Asa Kvissberg, a Swedish artist. Others include sculptor Kenneth Capps’ steel-plate drawings, Raúl Trejo’s exquisitely wrought trompe l’oeil butterflies and Katherine Brannock’s pen-and-ink bestiary series. The Pacific Beach/Taylor Branch Library’s visual arts program fills a vital niche, according to Lugo. It is a unique program funded solely by donations and extends throughout the entire library system. The library, its gallery space and the school lecture series, are all free of charge. The next show, featuring mixed-media artist Flavia Gilmore’s “Recent Works,” will open May 21 and will run about three months. The Pacific Beach/Taylor Branch Library Gallery is located at 4275 Cass St. Its hours of operation are Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 12:30 to 8 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30p.m. Lugo is available for group and class tours and can be reached at (619) 238-6627. The library can be reached by calling (858) 581-9934, or visiting www. sandiego.gov/public-library/services/. visualarts.shtml.