Expertly juried by Kapi'olani Community College's David Behlke and Kauka de Silva, the show's award winners are clearly the standouts, while the selection process has been admirably inclusive.

Tomi Tobara's heroic sized oil triptych "The Ko'olau," for example, skillfully captures the heraldic and emblematic reality of the Windward side of O'ahu, the mountains almost palpably pressing their tremendous spiritual power against the viewer's sensibilities.

Christine Kobayashi's silver gelatin print "Caught" is one of several nice photographs, including Mark Gilman's sharp and crisp digital photos that are oddly reminiscent of pinhole camera images.

Many pieces, like Paul Hosch's acrylic "Kabuki," display unpretentious, solid craft. Equally competent are works by Meg Stone, Ruth Laird Pistor, Pamela Tagariello, Kathy Yokouchi, Daniel Bethune, Bonnie McCann and Dagmar Kau.

At least four works in a variety of media — the assemblage by Lauren Joy Achitoff, Mary Farkash's photograph, Lori Uyehara's well-deserved first-place mixed-media assemblage and Dee Van Dyke's clay with acrylic sculpture — speak poetically in haunted, surreal tones, worthy exemplars of a still-viable tradition.

The show has its share of obligatory naive but charming works, such as the watercolors by Beth Anderson and David Devent and Doris Milota's oil.

Humor is well represented by Angela's Smerz's papier-mache "Retablo: My Cat — The Buddha" and Jay Marr's wood sculpture "March Madness — Slam Dunk."

Although the overall display is not without its glitches — some of the works on the exit-only stairs, in the reflective glass case and against the windows are not well served — the exhibition is certainly worthy of a close inspection to uncover some often pleasant surprises.

Adult-themed exhibit

If the 1132 exhibition is like an Ed Sullivan show, the Robyn Buntin show might be compared to the Three Tenors, at least in aspiration.

However, the works of Masami Teraoka, Hiroki Morinoue and Mark Kadota are more accurately described as those of a tenor, a baritone and a bass because of their disparate styles.

Born in 1936 in Onomichi, Japan, and holding art degrees from Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan and from Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, Teraoka is an internationally known artist who has exhibited widely since 1973.

A longtime resident of Hawai'i, he is most widely known for his magical watercolors and prints in the style of traditional Japanese woodblock printing, including his "McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan," "31 Flavors Invading Japan," "New Waves," "Hawaii Snorkel" and "Tale of a Thousand Condoms" series.

More recently he has dramatically changed his style.

"My current work," he says "has taken another direction, melding Western aesthetics,

religious and iconic themes from Renaissance that I update as if continuing a cross-epoch conversation," as exemplified in his disturbing and provocative "Adam and Eve" and "Virtual Inquisition" series.

"Kabuki," an acrylic on canvas by Paul Hosch, brings a Japanese flavor to the Windward Artist Guild: Juried Spring Exhibition.

Morinoue, a native of Holualoa on the Big Island with a fine arts degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts, has worked in a variety of media — mixed-media paintings, printmaking, ceramics, photography and sculpture — and has widely exhibited on the Mainland and in Japan.

His smaller, predominantly nonfigurative pieces — inspired by the rhythms, cycles and patterns of nature — are overshadowed by the more dramatic and erotic works of his colleagues. The gallery space, almost an afterthought in a shop primarily set up for the sale of Asian antiques and collectibles, does little to spotlight his work or showcase the ensemble.

Kadota's "Canned Goods" series — with many of its works rated PG if not R and discreetly if not subtly obscured behind Martha Stewart fabric curtains — explores our society's hypocritical ban on sexual images while fully exploiting them for advertising.

For Kadota, the can labels represent a kind of fast-food sex that typifies our current culture: "the easy access to quick sex, bigger and better breasts and impersonal body parts."

As a group exhibition, unfortunately, the show fails to find a unifying theme, and the works of each individual artist do not particularly complement each other.

If the notion that the aesthetic impulse ultimately aspires to carnal knowledge resonates, however, this is an exhibition to check out.

But do leave the kids at home for this outing.