Troubled trip
By Robert Pincus

The girl with rubbery arms offers her money to the creature in top hat, who stands inside a ticket booth. The booth is a tree. Steps along a path are stars with a skull on each. In the distance is a stage with a semi-robotic figure juggling balls of flame.

The painting is "One Way Ticket." The artist is Scott Saw. His show at Planet Rooth Studios, "Curtains," is a cycle of paintings, rife with symbol, that loosely narrates the life cycle of a heroine and others.

The North County artist is an energetic storyteller. "Life's Wonders," like so many of these paintings, commands your attention simply because you want to figure out what's taking place.

If this is the same character as the one who bought the ticket, then she's transformed. In "Life's Wonders," her arms are now much longer and she has a wheel instead of legs. She busies herself entertaining an audience of creatures, some ordinary and some not. Then again, the girl could be the figure in a wooden capsule, spraying a tree with a hose. Saw appears to favor ambiguity in his characters.

One thing is clear: the unifying metaphor is theater. This world is a stage. A consistent presence is a tree, with roots below the ever-changing stage, and its trunk breaking through the surface. His tree of life and death is green in "Summer Fangs" and sprouts skulls in "Harvest."

Saw's symbols are archetypal. His pictures illustrate his visual tale more than animate it. Like Michael Wheelden, his surfaces could benefit from a richer use of paint.

Death has a bigger presence than life in "Curtains," as the show's title would lead you to believe. The passing of a friend, Shellie, was a catalyst. The artist has made an altar in her memory. The heartfelt nature of Saw's show becomes evident, as you piece it together, and trumps its formal drawbacks.