It seems scarcely possible that a dozen...

SAN DIEGO — It seems scarcely possible that a dozen years ago the figure was as denigrated as landscape as a subject for serious artists. Nevertheless, there were always some artists whose love of the human form and of the environment inspired them to persist. And, of course, the rest of the art world rediscovered their legitimacy half a dozen years ago.

The works of three figurative artists are now on view at the Grossmont College Art Gallery in El Cajon (8800 Grossmont College Drive). The sole curatorial justification for the exhibition is that the artists are based in San Diego, for their aesthetics are wildly disparate.

Marjorie Nodelman’s paintings, the most fully represented and advantageously exhibited, are the closest to traditional portraiture. Spanning the period from 1980 to the present, they evince the artist’s development from an aggressive Pop idiom to a more traditional, but distinctive and contemporary, humanism. Most of the works fall between those two poles.

The largest, in form an oval eight feet tall, represents plastic surgeon Merrel Oleson about to operate. His virile stance and handsome features convey a combination of confidence and concern; his blue eyes, intelligence and integrity. We know that the unconscious patient in the foreground is in good hands. The image of doctor as saint is reinforced, perhaps unintentionally, but the operating room lamp looks like a halo.

Most of the other images are tondos, or round paintings, perhaps two feet in diameter. Most are good likenesses. Some, “Rosella,” for example, are brilliant psychologically as well as physiognomically.

“Sheldon” is indicative of a new and higher stage in the artist’s development, the tempo of which has accelerated in the past year. There is a new confidence in the work. A new inspiration has supplanted Nodelman’s early mordancy.

Where Nodelman’s works are as a group autobiographical, Robert Sanchez’s are more generalized socially and politically. They are a mixed group, few of which relate to one another. Nevertheless, they are iconographically compelling and masterfully drawn in charcoal and other media.

The Chicano tradition is present, even dominant, in Sanchez’s works, but the artist uses it to make his own distinctive, mature artistic statements. He uses his heritage creatively; he does not merely reflect its influence.

All the works are ominous. In “Red Wagon” a cow-headed, bare-breasted, high-heeled woman pulls a child’s wagon containing an obelisk. In front of her on a table, stand small, illuminated houses.

In “Beds IV--His/Hers,” perhaps the strongest work in the show, a woman enveloped in a burnoose-like robe stands with arms outstretched behind a bed with a heart-shaped headboard; a man in casual dress stands with arms behind his back in front of an upended bed. The paired images are an invitation to interpretation.

Brent Riggs is the last of the trio of artists, with four works which were shown recently at Java in downtown San Diego. All are political commentaries.

“Fission, or Fusion?” pairing orgasm with an atomic explosion, could have “Make Love, Not War” as a subtitle. “1984” is a grotesque, symbolic portrait of Ronald Reagan as Hollywood star and imperial President, as cowboy and Cold War warrior.

In giving exposure to artists who live in the area, Grossmont College is fulfilling a responsibility to the community which other, better-financed institutions are neglecting.

The exhibition has a short run through Tuesday.

The Gallery Store in downtown San Diego (724 Broadway) is host to a traveling exhibition whose interest is humanitarian rather than artistic.

Entitled “Granddaughters of Corn: Guatemalan Women and Repression,” it pairs black-and-white photographs of women in native garb with lists of names of women who have disappeared in recent years.

There is, however, no correspondence between the faces and the names.

Artist-photographer Marilyn Anderson and writer-historian Jonathan Garlock created the show out of two disparate bodies of information. The women were photographed when the American couple traveled to Guatemala in the 1960s and 1970s to document weaving traditions and techniques. Although the images are documentary rather than artistic in character, the handsome subjects are engrossing in their naive dignity.

A statistical account of the recent crimes of the authorities in Guatemala against its people accompanies the images, but there is no direct relationship between the two. The statement is full of “may be’s.” The cause is noble. And the means is effective, if not authentic.

The exhibition continues through Feb. 20.