The art gallery of the James Prendergast Public Library is awash in form and color.
Artist Jonathan Craig Chisholm is showing 25 of his three-dimensional creations. Some are wall reliefs, while others are free-standing figures. All are vividly alive with color.
The title of the exhibit is ''Signs, Symbols and Suggestions.''
The artist did a show in Westfield's Patterson Public Library, last winter, and 12 of the works from that show are repeated in the Jamestown show. Often, the new 13 works are companions to the earlier works, commenting further, or perhaps contrasting to the messages of the previous works.
The show fills the small Prendergast Gallery quite full, but there is never a feeling of crowding. Rather, it is like wandering through a beautifully planned garden, with something new and different around every bend.
Chisholm makes his artwork from varying thicknesses of wire and metal cable, which are twisted and bent into the shapes he desires, then are brightly colored.
Some of the works are simply expressions of beauty. Perhaps the largest and most imposing work is a four-panel room divider which represents creatures typically found in sea waters. The work is titled ''Beneath the Surface,'' and of course, the predominant color is vivid blue.
''Comes the Dawn'' is a landscape, with dark shapes around the outer edge, but the vivid golds and pinks of a rising sun, revealing in the center, a river with leafy and blooming banks: a sea of color.
A large, brilliant yellow and gold fan, turns out, upon close examination, to be made up of a musical staff, with a time signature and a series of notes, which spell out the melody of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Re: A Drop of Golden Sun,'' from ''The Sound of Music.''
Other of the works are more pointed in their intents, sometimes subtly so, and other times blunt.
The individual members of one charming pairing are titled ''Ego'' and ''Alter Ego.'' ''Ego'' is a freestanding figure, predominantly colored blue and purple, and representing a clown. Since psychology tells us that the ego is the part of the human personality which interacts most directly with surrounding reality, making plans and setting reasonable limits, the representation seems to suggest that someone sees himself as the life of the party, a jokester, perhaps, and a ball of fun.
''Alter Ego'' is defined as a second personality, which resides inside a person whose ego may not even be aware of it. The statue is a fierce-looking dragon, green and gold in color. If this individual sees himself as a clown, he has a monster inside, which could be a savage temper, or some similarly destructive and fearsome reality.
The Chisholm show will be in the library gallery through Sept. 7. There will be a reception on Friday of this week, from 6-8 p.m., when the public is invited to meet the artist and to discuss his work. Admission is free of charge, and refreshments will be served. Admission to the gallery is always without charge.
The works are priced for sale, between $150 and $1,000.
The Gallery of the James Prendergast Public Library is open whenever the library itself is open, seven days per week. Anyone arriving at the gallery and finding it locked should ask at the Reference Desk, at the foot of the stairs, and it will be opened.