Who among us hasn't cracked a wide smile at seeing one of those oversized animals that dotted national routes or warmed to a radio or TV interview with an eccentric character and thought, "only in America"?

Photographer David Graham has done one better, as evidenced in a cheery, quirky exhibition that chases the winter doldrums away through images ranging from gigantic concrete Amazons towering over a parked pickup in California to a male foursome presenting their balding heads in competition at an Ocean City, N.J., "Suntan Contest."

"In Search of America: Photographs by David Graham," at Silver Eye Center for Photography on the South Side, introduces the noted photographer to local audiences through 35 images taken over the past two decades that represent a breadth of his subject matter.

While grounded in American culture, Graham moves between found scenes -- a large painted shark hovering over piles of beer cans during Daytona Beach's Bike Week, a statue of Lenin in front of a Dallas strip mall -- and portraits of individuals such as a paunchy "George Washington" reenactor at Washington's Crossing in eastern Pennsylvania, or two men in cowboy hats and boots snaring a 5-foot-long rattlesnake in Mason, Texas.

Seeing fanciful roadside objects, one often wonders who created them. Graham's portraits give some insight to the types of personalities that may be at work.

The care Graham invests in his setups shows in such things as composition, positioning, background choices, what's included and what's left out. Graham prints his own photographs, and they are rich in color and warm in tone. This adds to the viewer's happy experience with the subject, even when the latter resides in a darker realm than is generally comfortable.

Contributing most to his success with the portraits, however, is the trust Graham establishes with his subjects, allowing him to penetrate to the human being beneath the caricature.

Author and National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu, who Graham calls a "kindred spirit," published two books with the photographer. Codrescu writes that Graham's subjects trust him because they know he won't betray them, even if he makes them look funny. "The people know that they are funny, they know what camp is, they know more levels of irony than a French intellectual because they watch American soaps."

Edginess is latent in many of these images, and it's part of the narrative that the viewer fills in, whether "completing" the story of a scantily-clad circus performer or a field of flood-submerged school buses.

There is also a nostalgic component, some of that attributable to the fact that we tend to relegate such free-wheeling showmanship to times past, other of it to the seeming innocence/naivete of the principals involved.

Not all of Graham's subjects are off the wall, and the continuum represented raises the question of what normalcy is and, by extension, who makes that distinction.

The exhibition gains an extra dimension in this prominent election year when, as Silver Eye executive director Linda Benedict-Jones observes, one of the questions being raised is "What constitutes America?" Through Graham's work, she says, "We are reminded of what a unique and colorful population we have in this melting-pot country of ours, which is unlike any other country on Earth."

Graham's tongue-in-cheek bio is, as is his oeuvre, irreverent -- but emphatically centered within awe and respect for life in all of its unpredictable grandeur. What comes through mostly, in artist and in work, is authenticity. Even when rooted in homogenized popular culture, individual expression is triumphant.

Whether bedecked celebrity groupie or hulking pink dinosaur, you're kind of glad Graham's subjects don't reside next to your house. But you're also mighty grateful that they, in all their capricious vitality, exist somewhere, making the world a more magical place.

Graham will conduct a "Photographic Safari" along Carson Street at 10 a.m. April 12 (reservations required; $25, $20 students and members), and give an Artist's Talk at 3 p.m., followed by a closing reception ($5, free to students and members).

Other events include "Your Pix From Route 66 With Sylvia Ehler," friendly feedback on participants' exhibition-related photographs, 6:30-8 p.m. tomorrow (free, reservations recommended); and workshops on digital cameras (March 15), archiving digital photographs (March 29) and '60s and '70s novelty box cameras (April 2); call for fees and reservations. "America" continues through April 12 at 1015 E. Carson St., South Side. Charlee Brodsky and Steve Simon exhibit in the Members Gallery. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, until 8 p.m. Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free; 412-431-1810 or www.silvereye.org.

The NCECA conference doesn't arrive until March 19, but clay exhibitions, official and auxiliary, have begun to open around the city. I'll have much more to come, but for those who want to plan ahead, www.ceramixpittsburgh.org is a good start.