A detail from "Circus/Equilibrium," an oil on birch painting by Patricia Bellan-Gillen that is part of the "Five Plus" exhibition. Click photo for larger image. "Five Plus" Where: James Gallery, 413 S. Main St., West End. When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays through Oct. 31. Admission: Free. Information: 412-922-9800 or www.jamesgallery.net.

The art in "Five Plus" at James Gallery in the West End may be appreciated without awareness of the artists' gender, but knowing that they are all women adds another dimension to the experience of this fine exhibition.

Featured are Judy Barie, Patricia Bellan-Gillen, Michelle Illuminato, Carol Kumata and Kathleen Mulcahy.

That they are all proven artists and well-established in their professions explains the maturity, confidence and relevance reflected in their two- and three-dimensional works.

It also shows in the sense of camaraderie exhibited in group and individual black and white photographs of them taken by Pittsburgh-based photojournalist Lynn Johnson. Invited by the gallery to shoot images for the exhibition and for gallery files, Johnson surpassed documentation to create a sensitive portrait series. The artists posed together at the gallery and individually at their homes.

Johnson also exhibits a dozen of her own untitled photographs, including a woman runner fitted with a special prosthesis, and masked and cloaked Asian poultry workers, images that resonate with meaning in light of the global threat posed by avian flu.

Johnson is the "plus" of the show's title, which might also embrace curator Gayle Irwin of the gallery, her assistant Lindsay Buehler and designer Toni Ault -- a thoroughly female production, and one that disassembles stereotypes.

Consider, for example, Mulcahy's largest blown glass "spinners," a form that resembles a top just coming to rest and that carries restless worlds within. Imagine the strength required to heft those in their molten state, not to mention the technical expertise and concentration required to control color placement and formal development.

By varying such things as palette and density of pattern, Mulcahy's sculpture can appear as light as the confection-colored "Pearl" or as bold as "Tourmaline and Smoke Topaz Spinner," which calls to a Steelers fan with its predominately gold and black swirls.

A smaller version can support, like gem-studded pieces made by jewelers, more intensity of coloration and pattern. Some, like "Web," are delicately beautiful, their cranberry glass tones introducing an air of nostalgia to these ultimately contemporary forms.

Perhaps a more interesting distinction than gender to consider is between studio and academic artist, Mulcahy and Barie being of the former category.

While Mulcahy spins a vortex, Barie creates a plane of contemplative harmony in paintings that weave complexity into spaces of consideration. The variety of patterns she combines -- calligraphic, sculpural, resembling Islamic tiles or even wallpaper -- would seem to invite dissonance or visual fatigue. However, she manages to negotiate this diverse expression into refined quiet presences that calm but are not without intellectual component.

For each of these artists, the perfection and evolution of the object seems paramount to idea, which is not to deny the presence of content. For the remaining artists, each of whom teach at Carnegie Mellon University, the balance appears to be reversed, with more emphasis on conceptual aspects.

Kumata has created a fountain in two parts for the gallery's sculpture garden, using identical functional clay vessels. Water flows from one grouping, while plants trail from the other. Appealing, even decorative, they may also inspire thoughts about the symbolism of the vessel developed through history, and its relationship to the body.

The inspiration for Illuminato's deceptively simple "games" -- resembling the enclosed hand-held toys that challenge participants to roll free-flowing balls into depressed spaces -- is a social dynamic born of the oppression and war experienced by Eastern Europeans in modern times.

In Italy this summer, Illuminato collaborated with a group of young artists from Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia, and the sculptures displayed refer to experiences as varied as finding a good fishing hole in the bombed rubble of a bridge to driving a red Yugo to a favorite secret store.

Finally, there are Bellan-Gillen's paintings, which are show-stoppers wherever they're exhibited: enigmatic and speaking to the intellect and to emotion, formally and through a file of iconic imagery that she regularly employs.

The 60-by-90-inch "Passage II/Leaving the Water," for example, shows a monkey with a jack-o'-lantern on its head, riding a dolphin through a chartreuse sea. A large uneven orange circle that overlays the scene is bisected by a purple line tipped by toy airplanes that sail like fish through this visually bright, emotionally murky space that could suggest that man hasn't evolved much during his extended stay on land.

A 4-by-4-inch painting, "Tears With Teeth," depicts a polar bear shedding an oversized pink tear with a grimacing face.

In works large and small, Bellan-Gillen combines realistic and abstract elements, blending the boundaries between what is culturally defined as real and experiential and what each of us carries internally. She also shows serigraphs printed at Artist Image Resources that are equally mesmerizing and substantial.

In impact and inspiration, the overall of "Five Plus" is more than the sum of its parts. That's always a sign of a good solid show.

Quilters on WQED

Two Pittsburgh quilters -- Sandra German and Shawn Quinlan -- are among those visited in "Pennsylvania Quilts," a production of WQED Multimedia, which will air on channel 13 at 8 p.m. tomorrow and 5 p.m. Sunday.

Thompson at SCC

Ceramist Lydia Thompson, exhibiting in "COLOR": Ten African American Artists" at the Society for Contemporary Craft, will lecture there at 6 p.m. Friday (suggested $5 donation) and conduct a workshop Saturday ($90 plus $25 materials). Information: 412-261-7003.

Post-9/11 readings

"LOST: A reading examining a Post-9/11 World" will begin at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Fe gallery, Lawrenceville, in conjunction with the exhibition "Four Years Later." The program was organized by Sherrie Flick, and readers will be Nancy Krygowski, Chauna Craig, Tony Farrington, Yona Harvey and Lois Williams. Information: 412-860-6028.

Fellowship deadline

Submissions to "Fellowship 2005," an annual photographic competition sponsored by Silver Eye Center for Photography, South Side, are due Friday. The juror is Lesley Martin, executive editor, Aperture Books, New York, who should be high on any photographer's list of people he'd want to expose his work to. Information: www.silvereye.org.