By Paul Varnell

Contributing Writer

Andersonville’s Estudiotres gallery presents “Drawn In,” a group exhibition of artists for whom drawing is an important element in their work. The exhibition includes three gay artists: George Bowes, Robert Lucy and John Parot.

George Bowes’ small porcelain “Hurricane Miniatures” are the first thing you see as you walk in the gallery door. Arranged in a lozenge pattern, the 42 gently rounded oval-shaped pieces range in size from 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches up to 4 by 6 inches. They resemble small stones worn smooth by the waves. Each piece has the familiar swirling cloud formations associated with hurricanes drawn on top of a gray background. Many also have bright red silhouettes of some familiar oceanfront scene: a beach umbrella, a beach chair, gulls sitting on pilings, a gull in flight and a solitary surfer braving the waves.

Bowes’ other contribution is a set of seven white 10-inch porcelain dinner plates he calls “Closet Ware.” Each plate has almost invisibly imprinted on it a term referring to a gay man, most of them demeaning if not downright hostile—terms such as “cocksucker,” “hairy Mary” “fudge packer,” “pussy boy” or “sex pig.” The writing is not in a different color but in a contrast between concave and convex dots.

Chicagoan John Parot (pronounced per-AHT) contributes three small red and black mixed media pieces with the titles “End,” “Reverse” and “Black Water.” Each consists of uncertain shapes out of which disconcerting, even macabre, mask-like faces peer at the viewer. The faces are composed of thin red and black lines against a background that consists of triangular shapes of alternating high and low gloss black. Touches of green and blue are barely visible.

The pieces contain an emotional charge in excess of their small size: none is larger than about 12 by 12 inches. Without being able to say exactly why, viewers may find themselves haunted by them days later. Exhibit curator Rob Bondgren referred to the pieces as “dark,” suggesting not only the colors but the emotional response they invite as well.

Working with colored pencil, Robert Lucy offers more colorful pictures, if mostly in muted tones, partly composed of allusions to earlier art. “Metropolis Madonna” pays a kind of homage to Fritz Lang’s 1927 film “Metropolis” with an image of a robot woman from that film layered over a pre-Renaissance Madonna, her right breast replaced by a round fruit derived from Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.”

“Flow” depicts a landscape with a cataract falling between precipitous cliffs and an exotic surrealistic plant springing up in the foreground topped by a nude female child. Both foreground images are taken from work by the German romantic era painter Philipp Runge.

“Queen Kitty” depicts a large butterfly over a woman’s mouth, reminiscent of advertisements for the film “Silence of the Lambs,” while the woman—silent film actress Theda Bara playing “Cleopatra”—wears an elaborate headdress suggested by an image also in Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.”

Viewers are welcome to puzzle out the meaning of the pictures or the relevance of their cultural incorporations, but the pictures have an exotic visual attractiveness apart from whatever meaning they hold.

The other artists included in the exhibition are Adriana Baltazar, Jason Karolak and George Liebert, all of Chicago. Each of the artists have been associated in some way with the Art Institute of Chicago.

Whether the omnibus exhibit title, “Drawn In,” adequately captures the main features or the range of work presented is doubtful. But none of the works are without interest and can reward an unhurried visit to the small gallery.

“Drawn In,” including gay artists George Bowes, Robert Lucy and John Parot, at Estudiotres, 5205 N. Clark. Open Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat. noon-5 p.m.; Sun. noon- 4 p.m. The exhibition runs through August 24. More information about the art is availble at Estudiotres’ website at www.estudiotres.com/gallery.