James O'Malley likes abstract art, but doesn't get excited about it.

When he picks up his paintbrush, it's not to exorcise some demon with vicious slashes on the canvas or evoke a higher consciousness through a subtle shade of brown.

"I love realism," said the Struthers, Ohio, man, whose show at the Valley Arts Guild, Sharon, opens Friday. "You have to get excited about something to get good at it."

O'Malley is excited by a 5 p.m. tree shadow against a house, lettering -- whether it's on a neon sign, a license plate or the comics page -- and crisscrossing candy bar wrappers.

"I've always loved his pictures," said Louis Miller, who owns a couple of O'Malley paintings. "I like the way he picks up reflections. To be that precise, it's hard to get."

Miller, of Hermitage, also is an artist and is showing a handful of works with O'Malley. Instead of making something identifiable out of lines of paint, he starts with a real image -- a photograph or illustration, usually from a calendar -- and cuts it up, reassembling the pieces with other cut-up pictures to create something abstract, such as his thoughts about something or someone.

Miller calls his art form "collagenetics" or "creation art" with creation standing for "collagenetically re-engineered, autonomic, transmogrified image of now."

Claiming that he doesn't have enough imagination to make something up, he starts with something someone else has done and alters it to fit his own purpose.

"I like to get something I can do with a paper cutter," said Miller, who cited graphic artist Victor Baserelli, who used blocks of color instead of images, and Surrealist painter Rene Magritte as influences.

Miller works in the computer department of Phar-Mor, and the upheavals, scandals and cutbacks that mark the company's history are a prime source of material.

Miller included five Phar-Mor-inspired works in the show and uses images such as a rose, a shark, a desert scene, a red light, a flying boat and a sailing airplane to show the company's initial growth, its deterioration and the outside consultants that were called in to try to salvage the operation.

The final work of the series on display -- he has another 10 or so pieces at home -- shows Phar-Mor's uncertain future.

"We've been through all this junk and we don't know what's going to happen," Miller said.

Other Miller works include "A rose is a rose is a rainbow" -- his thoughts on his daughters, Jessica and Jill -- and "Vertical Horizon," in which he plays with perspective by posting views of a mountainside, the ocean and seashells sideways.

He complicated "Vertical Horizon" by inserting his favorite "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit cover.

But the model is not sideways. She confronts the viewer as one would expect to look at a photograph, adding an element of locker room humor.

Just as Miller is awed by O'Malley's precision, O'Malley

Realism

Artists show different faces of realism

from page C-1

praises Miller's construction.

"I don't know how he does it, how he figures it out," O'Malley said. "I like his work."