Shell Game : Hollow female sculptures inspire strong reactions in Ventura College show.

A strange--and, one could say, hollow--cast of characters inhabits the Ventura College Gallery 2 at present. Equal parts garb, shell and body, the fabric sculptures by Elizabeth Ingraham come in the form of several life-size “skins” for her aptly titled show “skin deep.”

The elaborately imagined and stitched anatomical figures, which hang from metal armatures, are like curious exoskeletal mannequins in a futuristic retail outlet.

The space is charged with complex emotions, and the sight is at first startling, funny and also a bit unsettling.

These characters are depersonalized and reduced to female archetypes--with zippers and buttons and various other mechanisms that allow viewers to interact with them.

Feminist interpretations immediately spring to mind, since feminine roles are inherent in Ingraham’s designs. The works are empty (and emptied out), and carry such titles as “longing,” “matrimony,” “accommodation” and “baggage.”

But disturbing implications are softened and counterbalanced by the sheer sensuousness of material and fastidiousness of craft. These are beautiful objects, invested with conflicting messages.

Though now based in Lincoln, Neb., Ingraham once taught at UCSB and was a studio assistant for Ann Hamilton, who spent time in Santa Barbara before becoming one of the most celebrated installation artists in the world.

Like Hamilton’s, Ingraham’s work deftly plays with our perceptions of art space.

It also possesses layers of meaning and is fueled by a subversive imagination and keen intelligence.

Her work can evoke a variety of attitudes, but indifference isn’t one of them.

Of Place and Memory: The two artists currently sharing the college’s New Media Gallery have little in common, formwise. In content, both are profoundly influenced by nature and personal memories.

Ventura-based sculptor Jose de la Pena shows works in wood and marble. The pieces are usually twisting, twining forms that could suggest entrails or the desert vegetation reminiscent of the artist’s upbringing in the Southwest.

Occasionally, concrete objects are abstracted into sculptural form, as with “Mi Vieja Guitara,” a Cubist blend of human and guitar.

Geri Lu Jurey’s monotypes, meanwhile, relate to her childhood in the Appalachian mountains, to years spent raising horses in Tennessee, and to equestrian and art-making experiences in California, where she now lives.

This we learn from her artist’s statement. Aptly, her imagery seems cut from the cloth of the natural world and the backdrop of her own memory.

In specific terms, equestrian details--of sinew and curves--are translated into enigmatic visual terms. But there is also an essential, raw approach to image-making that refers obliquely to nature, time and memory, and the place where they meet.

DETAILS

“skin deep,” sculptures by Elizabeth Ingraham, “Icons and Symbols,” monotypes by Geri Lu Jurey, and sculpture by Jose de la Pena, through Dec. 14 at Ventura College, 4667 Telegraph Road, in Ventura. Call gallery for hours; 648-8974.