Gallery dwarfs exhibit

The Main Gallery of Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art was designed to house large art exhibitions and has generally been reserved for such shows since the gallery opened in 1991.

That's evidently no longer the case since SECCA became a subsidiary of the state-run N.C. Museum of Art last year. A small solo exhibition by Maggie Orth opened late last month in one corner of the gallery. It's sharing the space with other works that have been on view there for a while -- a three-artist show of projected video works titled "Time" and a large Sol LeWitt wall drawing left over from an earlier group show of murals.

Orth, from Seattle, is the founder and chief executive officer of a textile-design marketing company called International Fashion Machines. She incorporates electronic components and conductive fibers into fabric-art pieces, three of which make up her SECCA exhibition titled "Evolving Images," on view through Aug. 23.

Each of Orth's works consists primarily of electronically powered, fabric-based, modular permutations on the standard minimalist grid. Square fabric panels are attached to the fronts of wall-mounted light boxes, made of thin sheet plastic and grouped to form grids. Some of the panels have been augmented with lines of stitched thread that create uniformly decorative patterns. Others have essentially been collaged with smaller cutout-fabric shapes, some of which are tufted and textured like terrycloth or chenille. By touching parts of these works, viewers activate electronic components that temporarily illuminate their surfaces.

When viewers touch the textured fabric on her piece titled Petal Pusher, for example, the square panels are illuminated at four different levels from behind, highlighting stitched geometric patterns that incorporate stylized blossom shapes. An accompanying text panel explains the workings of the technology built into the piece.

This piece appeared to be operating properly when I saw the show a few days after it opened, but there seemed to be some problems with both of the other pieces. A small section of Fuzzy Light Wall had detached from one of its square fabric panels, and the lighting devices behind several of its other panels wouldn't respond to my touch, as they were evidently designed to do.

According to a wall text accompanying Orth's piece titled Running Plaid, a push of a button on the right side of its wooden frame is supposed to trigger transformations in its color, design and pattern. When I tried it out, any such transformations either weren't happening or were so subtle that I couldn't see them.

For all their electronic gimmickry and billing as technologically groundbreaking, Orth's works exert little in the way of an optical charge or other visual excitement. This comes off as very mild-mannered, decorative work -- art lite, you might call it.

Gateway Gallery

For my money -- or at least my viewing time -- there's a lot more visual excitement to be found in a three-artist show that opened in late May at the Enrichment Center's Gateway Gallery. Most of that excitement is thanks to local artist Ricky Needham, whose work dominates this show, which is on view through July 19.

Needham has maintained a fairly high profile on Winston-Salem's visual-art scene in recent years, thanks to his prolific output and his work's appearance in a number of local exhibitions and a highly visible billboard that was posted alongside a local stretch of Interstate 40 not long ago. Even though the show at Gateway Gallery is a group effort, it contains the largest selection of Needham's art I can recall seeing at a local venue -- seven drawings and 13 paintings, including two small diptychs.

Exuberant, idiosyncratically outrageous and richly entertaining, Needham's works at Gateway include many of his familiarly long-limbed nude or semi-nude figures driving elaborately tricked-out cars, motorcycles and tractors. These fancy, imaginary vehicles are typically shown in flight across the sky above fantasy landscapes crowded with brightly colored castles and amusement-park rides.

The principal characters in several of Needham's paintings are green biped dragons, including four small and four large ones that smile seductively as they show off their long legs and bare buttocks in Loch Ness Monster Land. My favorite of his drawings is the one titled Satan is Getting Along with People. This drawing's grinning, androgynous protagonist kicks up his heels as he sits astride a phallic rocket surrounded by various animals and semi-nude humanoids, as well as banner-like textual passages including one that reads, reassuringly, "We in nuclear war and hard time inflation, don't worry thing be alwrigh."

Needham's work is accompanied by Ryan Pritts' small pedestal sculptures -- reminiscent of rocket ships and celestial bodies -- and several assemblages that John Bryan created from found pieces of furniture and architectural components.

■ Maggie Orth's "Evolving Images" is on view through Aug. 23 at SECCA, 750 Marguerite Drive. For more information, call 336-725-1904. Works by Ricky Needham, Ryan Pritts and John Bryan are on view through July 19 at the Gateway Gallery, 1006 S. Marshall St. For more information, call 336-725-8584.