Noelle Turco's mixed-media art looks bright, whimsical and delightfully charming with its bold colors and childlike images.

Look a little closer and the Lancaster artist has a much deeper story to tell.

"My work is all about the stories behind it," Turco says. "It may look lighthearted and pretty, but there is much more beneath the surface."

Turco's artwork is being displayed at Red Raven Art Company through July 31, and the intensity of her imagery can best be seen in "Oceano," a vivid orange and pink composition with a white newsprint fish. The fish is not shimmery and alive with color like the rest of her work. It is dying, a victim in the environmental wasteland of the sea.

It is no coincidence that Turco's pale, bony fish depicts death. Like so many Americans, Turco is distressed over the vast oil leak in the Gulf, which is killing wildlife and damaging the environment for years to come.

"You can't ignore it. It is a terrible tragedy," says Turco, whose charming collages bely her concern for the shattered underwater ecosystem.

Turco grew up in a family as the youngest of six sisters, which she describes as being quite "crazy." She loved to collect scraps of paper, magazine clippings and other bits and pieces. Nowadays, she's taken the crazy quilt of her life and transformed it into colorful mixed-media works that combine torn paper, wire, found objects, stitching and embroidery, acrylics, gouache, watercolors, pastels, ink and crayon -- and anything else that catches her fancy.

Her latest collection is titled "Light my Fire," and in it she uses old matchbook covers, along with other snippets of material. Her lively "Java Man" is set on brilliant golden yellow, with an Uncle Sam type character, wearing a striped top hat and jacket. He smiles pleasantly as three multi-color coffee cups float in front of him.

"He is my addiction," admits Turco, who adds that she is unable to function without several cups of coffee in the morning.

The mother of two children -- one in his 20s and the other just 4 -- Turco approaches her work with the eye of a children's book illustrator. She is a huge fan of illustrators such as Eric Carle and Ed Emberley. She is also a designer, working at Carr's Restaurant in Lancaster, where she designed the imaginative wine bar Crush.

Turco shares the Red Raven spotlight with three other artists during July. Carlysle Vicenti of Richmond, Va., showcases 25 years of printmaking exploration with rubber rollers known as brayers. Using brayers, glass, plexiglass and layered color, Vicenti's work provides the perfect complement to Turco's art. Both are lyrical, colorful and magical. His print of a starlit boat has patchwork sails and a scattering of golden stars and sun set against a midnight blue sky.

Then there are the lovely watercolors of the Fulton Opera House by artist Bertie Brown.

Jonathan Whitlock, 29, was a promising young artist before a car accident 11 years ago left him with a brain injury, poor vision in one eye, limited use of his right hand and in a wheelchair. Five months after emerging from a coma, Whitlock struggled to pick up a paint brush. While living at Success Rehabilitation in Quakertown, he took an art class at Bucks County Community College.

Whitlock's work demonstrates his artistic spirit as he strives to create a new reality. His goal to become a professional artist is fostered by classes at the Lancaster County Art Association.

"My aspirations as an artist were dramatically altered. Before the accident, I embraced cubism, deconstructing images of my subjects," Whitlock says. "After the accident, I used art to reconnect my mind and emotions in an effort to regain my abilities."

 "Light my Fire," by Noelle Turco

Monoprints by Carlysle Vincenti

Watercolors by Bertie Brown

Emerging artist Jonathan Whitlock

Cont. through July

Tues., Thurs., Fri. and Sat.

10 a.m.-5 p.m.

(First Fri. 10 a.m.-8 p.m.) Free

Red Raven Art Company

138 N. Prince St., 299-4400
www.redravenartcompany.com