Traversing the Realms of Art and Nature : Artist Rachelle Mark’s latest works, at the Orlando Gallery, show perceptions of the Amazon region.

Encino-based artist Rachelle Mark embarked on a journey to the Amazon, and, upon returning to the sanctum of the studio, attempted to come to grips with her impressions of that region. “Amazonia and Beyond,” a large show of old and new works at the Orlando Gallery, reflects the struggle to traverse the realms of art and nature.

By combining the vocabularies of abstract painting, tactile collage surfaces, evocations of forest thickets, and a celebration of undergrowth, Mark creates links between the primordial energies and the intuitive process of art-making. Somewhere in it all, a sympathetic connection is made, via her efforts as an intellectual explorer.

The message, and method, underlying her new series of works is embodied in “Machu Picchu,” in which a framed, tinted photograph of the Peruvian ruins literally deconstructs into a rough mass of green “vegetation.” Here, the call of nature engulfs the human maneuvers of culture.

A more direct, three-dimensional emulation of the forest defines “Noon Forest Walk,” a foliage-like relief piece, which seems to be about the secret life of plants.

According to this personalized field report, the jungle is intoxicating, non-linear.

Mark’s older works, on view in another part of the gallery, reflect a similar probing spirit and collagist’s sensibility, although the art is more structurally restrained.

A ladder motif crops up in many of the pieces, symbolic of transcendence and the desire thereof. Spiritual searching is also at the heart of “Oracle,” a sculpture in the form of an altar.

Mark shows an endearing simplicity and directness of effect, but with an exploratory subtext. Hers is an organically conceptual approach, in which easy, scruffy edges--an apparent love of image-making--merge with an interest in pushing boundaries and baring new discoveries.

* “Amazonia and Beyond,” through Friday at the Orlando Gallery, 14553 Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks; 789-6012.

For Love of the State: In his show at Artspace in Woodland Hills, Carlos Lacamara, an expatriate from Castro’s Cuba, shows an unabashed fondness for his adopted homeland of California. In a sprawling show of over 50 paintings, most of the images sing visual praises of scenic destinations familiar to tourists--and admiring artists--of the golden state.

As such, a sub-theme of the exhibit has to do with Mediterranean architecture. Missions, Carmel, Monterey are all treated with a kind of plain-speak artistry, a clear and unfussy sense of pictorialization that may reflect the artist’s work as an illustrator.

Lacamara deviates from his norm of pragmatic rendering in a series of Don Quixote paintings. The lean, gaunt-faced legend appears in various guises and settings, with an aura of longing, as in “Blue Expectation.” Here, the palette is darkly moody, and the images stylized in a distorting way that evokes ‘50s kitsch.

The best painting in the show is the most anomalous. A depiction of Pablo Casals practicing cello carries an expressive strength, with active brushwork and an introspection that we don’t get from the travelogue segment of the show.

* Carlos Lacamara, Artspace Gallery, 21800 Oxnard St. Suite 119 in Woodland Hills; through Saturday; 716-2786.