<>Monterey County’s got art running through its veins. Galleries blend in with restaurants and shops, artists set up roadside easels to paint beach scenes and capture historic landmarks, and fine art lines the walls of museums as well as public buildings. For three centuries, artists have found inspiration in the outlines of the Carmel Mission and the booming surf at Big Sur, and their methods of communicating that beauty are varied in both medium and style.<>

A couple of exhibits among the hundreds that will be on display this season illustrate that variety.

 At the Lisa Coscino Gallery in Pacific Grove, Coscino is preparing for an exhibit by PG artist Jeff Becom. Becom trained as a painter, then became a well-known color photographer who shows at Carmel’s Weston Gallery. Coscino says that Becom recently returned to painting and spent the past year in Peru painting from his photographs of local places. The show, which opens Sept. 10 and runs until Oct. 15, is aptly titled Near From Afar. The landscapes are depicted in almost jarring hues that somehow seem reality-based.

“What ended up happening with his paintings is that the colors are so strange and bizarre,” Coscino says. “But you look at his paintings, and I swear, you think this is how they happen in nature.”

Coscino is including an exhibit of the original photographs on which Becom based his paintings “just to let people have some fun understanding how this guy can transpose colors in his mind.”

Meanwhile, at the Monterey Museum of Modern Art (MMA), Geography of Memory: Selected Works on Paper by Roger Shimomura, opens Sept. 18 and runs through Jan. 2, 2005. MMA curator Mary Murray says that the exhibit, which was curated by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, is “kind of a blend of Japanese woodblock prints as well as a pop vocabulary with comic strip images.”

Shimomura, a third generation Japanese-American, used diaries from his grandmother’s experience in Japanese internment camps, along with his own challenges of racial stereotyping, to create his subject matter.

“It’s a bit confrontational,” Murray says. “Some of the issues are not pretty and some of the images are not pretty. But it’s a wonderful opportunity for people to look at the issues, and I hope that people will have a dialogue.”

“Some people think we tend to do boring landscapes,” she says. “It’s nice to show we do more than that.”

Also showing around the area this Fall:

Alvarado Gallery, Monterey Conference Center, One Portola Plaza, Monterey, 646-3991. Through Sept. 20. Atmospheric Abstracts and Plein Air. Ann Walbert and Robert Lewis offer different perspectives on the central coast.

Carmel Art Association, Dolores btwn 5th and 6th, Carmel, 624-6176. Opens October 6. Reception: Sept. 4, 6-8pm. Surfaces group show of painters Alex Gonzales, Heidi Hybl, Barbara Johnson, Michael Tsouris and sculptor Gustavo Torres.

Center for Photographic Art, Sunset Cultural Center, San Carlos and 9th, Carmel. 625-5181. Oct. 2-Nov. 19 (Reception Oct. 2, 6-8pm): The Center Awards Exhibition, featuring award winners, photographers Stephen Marc, Binh Danh, and Ryo Iwasaki.

<>Hanson Gallery, Ocean Ave. near San Carlos, Carmel. 625-6142. Oct. 8-25: Seussentenial: Celebrating 100 years of Dr. Seuss. Oct. 30: Reception for Peter Max, 4-6pm.

Hartnell College Gallery, 156 Homestead Ave., Salinas. 755-6791. Sept. 7-Oct. 7: John Haley-Form and Space, featuring his sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing and photography.

Lisa Coscino Gallery, 216 Grand Avenue, Pacific Grove. 646-1939. Through Oct. 15 (Opening Reception Sept. 10, 6-8pm): Main Gallery: Jeffrey Becom, Near From Afar. Mid Gallery: Patricia Reed, Necessities.

Monterey Museum of Art, 559 Pacific Street, Monterey. 372-5477. Through Nov. 7: San Francisco and the Second Wave: The Blair Collection of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism. Sept. 18 through Jan. 2, 2005: Geography of Memory: Selected Works on Paper by Roger Shimomura

<>Monterey Museum of Art, La Mirada, 720 Via Mirada, Monterey. 372-5477. Ongoing: Restless Seas: Works by Armin Hansen;  The Art and Craft of Japanese Packaging;  Charles M. Russell Bronzes; Body of Work: figurative paintings, drawings and prints.

National Steinbeck Center, One Main St., Salinas. 775-4721. Through Nov. 7: From the Sierra to the Sea: The California Landscapes of Chiura Obata

PG Art Center, 568 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove. 375-2208. Hootenanny: Sept. 25, 7-10pm. Free admission, potluck. Oct. 29-Dec. 5, 2004: Patron’s Show, and drawing to raise funds for the center.

Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, 165 Forest Ave., Pacific Grove. 648-5716. Through Jan. 8, 2005. Lecture: September 4, 2pm. Portraits of the Great Apes by Robert Cooper.

<>Photography West Gallery, Dolores & Ocean, Carmel. 625-1587. Through Oct. 20, Christopher Burkett exhibit. Oct. 30, 4-6pm. 25th anniv. Through Dec 31, 2004, Roman Loranc Exhibit.

Sassoontsi Gallery, 40 Central Ave., Salinas. 751-1777. Through Sept. 28: Six From Fifty-Four, original works by high school classmates Chet Amyx, Pat Burden-Roberts, Jim Crane, Ray Tarp, Andy Zermeno and Denis Renault.

Trajan Gallery, Ocean and San Carlos, Carmel. 625-4388. Sept. 1-30: Woods and Moon Sequence, new paintings by Barry Masteller.

Valley Art Gallery, 218 Main St., Salinas. 422-4162. Through Sept. 25 (Opening reception Sept. 10, 5-7pm): Autumn, artwork by gallery members.

Winfield Gallery, Dolores btwn Ocean and Seventh, Carmel. 624-3369. Oct. 1-31 (Opening reception Oct. 10, 3-6pm): Jack Zajac: Figurative works from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Nov. 1-30: (Reception: Nov. 14, 4-6pm): Barbara Johnson and Stephen Aikens.