Art broadens the mind and opens the third eye.
Asian cultures see the third eye as the all-knowing part of the mind.
The University Art Gallery is displaying six collections of modern art from Northern California called Chico Collects.
One painting has a man with an eye in his forehead; the third eye weeps, but why it weeps is unknown.
Two of the collectors said the allure of fine art is figuring out the meaning of symbols, such as the third eye.
Collector Reed Applegate said the self-portrait "Me and Jackson" is Robert Arneson's attempt to link himself with Jackson Pollack. Beside the sketch lies a drawing of Jackson, who was the greatest American artist, Applegate said, because he freed the canvas from the easel by putting his canvases on the ground, walking around them and splashing paint with "wonderful gestural energy."
"Arneson felt a linking with Jackson," said Applegate. "He did this in 1989, and he was diagnosed with cancer in 1992. This painting somehow foretold the diagnosis."
Both painters died young: Jackson at 44 and Arneson at 56. Applegate said the third eye in Arneson's forehead could be mourning the death of Jackson.
Other symbols like Christian fish, a series of tic-tac-toes and a western hat are open to interpretation.
Applegate's collection has a watercolor of a house with bright blue, green and orange brush strokes.
The watercolor is by Vance Logan, a member of Society of Six, a group that painted scenes in the Bay Area hills.
Their works were done plein-air, or on the spot, which Applegate said was a challenge because the light was always changing and they had to work quickly.
The largest of Applegate's favorites "Hawaiian Shirt for an Air Traffic Controller" is a 4-foot yellow jacket with airplanes crashing into it, which David Gilhooly crafted with Plexiglas.
Another piece has a man, his dog and an Indian chief rowing a boat. Underneath the water lurks a two-headed figure facing opposite directions, which Applegate said represents the goddess Janice, whose one head looks at the past, the other toward the future.
There is also a drawing of a woman undressing, which Applegate said gives the viewer "a peek into the window of the artist's thoughts," because the lines run over, indicating he was changing his mind about how she should look. Applegate said the pillows in the sketch recall the style of Matisse.
One work in Applegate's set has eight little dogs, done by Wayne Tibo.
"He said he loves dogs," said Applegate. "He seemed to capture the individual personalities of each dog."
Souza said DeHoff loaded his paintings with images from books, therefore she said "one must live with DeHoff's art" before the literary references emerge.
"He would rarely talk of work," said Souza, who owns Vagabond Rose Gallery and Framing. "He wanted the mystery to be there. He ran away from people who asked him questions about it."
A typical DeHoff design has one central figure, usually a female and many vague emblems.
"The Ineffable Response" portrays a woman behind tree branches, one of which is piercing her heart.
Souza said "The Pagan," which shows a balloon hovering over a black faceless shawl, used to worry people because it represents death. "The Waking Rose" carries on the third-eye theme; it's a rosebud with an eye inside.
The purple background of "The Tourist" contrasts a Renaissance woman sporting a red dress and black sunglasses. And "The Universal Solvent" has a girl in a checkered dress rubbing solvent on her arm.
In a striking scene called "Memory, the Ghost of Love" a lady with her heart on a necklace has a skeleton-like face, a face that Souza implied may be a man's. An attendee had her own thoughts.
"I don't know, men and women look alike as they get older," said Michele French, who once was an art critic for the Chico Enterprise-Record.
DeHoff's compositions often have lizards. Souza said that when a San Francisco Chronicle reporter asked DeHoff why he painted "Lizard Ladies in Voluminous Dress," DeHoff said he thought lizards "were a neglected lot."
Souza said DeHoff often began a painting with a title from literature, but unlike most artists, his titles don't necessarily describe what is going on.
Rather they "go in the same direction as the painting," she said
The centerpiece work entitled "The Archpoet Becalmed on the Sea of Inspiration," has a person sailing the sea on a couch as bubbles cover the sky.
Souza said the face looks like DeHoff himself as a child, but the person has an old looking hand with little arrows for veins -- symbols that are beyond her interpretation. The sail has carnations, a douche mark symbol (the artist's German heritage) and the number 43 (DeHoff's age when he painted it.)
Because DeHoff was a literary scholar, Souza said she often comes across lines in poetry that give her clues about what he was thinking, and that the fun of collecting fine art is uncovering the meaning.
Joseph Minissale can be reached at jminissale@orion-online.net
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