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"Something This Way Comes" by Michael Bashaw and Jeff Regensburger is showing at the Dayton Visual Arts Center now through March 6.

The art exhibit, which consists of sculptures by Bashaw and oil paintings by Regensburger, shares the subject matter of tornadoes.

"The DVAC is all about supporting working visual artists in our area, from emerging artists at the beginning of their paths in the art world to established artists who are showing regionally, nationally and internationally," said Jane Black, DVAC's executive director.

According to Black, "Something This Way Comes" pairs two mid-career artists whose work is completely different in style and media.

"The show is tied together thematically, and that theme [tornadoes] relates to another big event in town: the premier of the smash Broadway musical 'Wicked' at the Schuster Center," Black said.

"Wicked," which will be in Dayton from Feb. 17 through March 7, is based off the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire, a parallel to L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." The musical tells the story of Elphaba, the fiery, green-skinned witch who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda, the beautiful and popular Good Witch of the North.

"I was asked to create an installation exhibit which would run concurrently with 'Wicked,' Bashaw said.

Bashaw, a sculptor and multi-instrumentalist, is an artist-in-residence at UD. He is also teaching a course at ArtStreet titled Transformational Experience. Bashaw uses his experiences in music and art to teach this special topics class.

"UD students should attend ["Something This Way Comes"] because installation art is something different that many students may not have experienced before, especially if they don't frequent art galleries," Bashaw said.

Black encourages students to attend as well.

"Because Michael's piece is a site-specific installation that was created just for our space and this show, it absolutely stands out," Black said. "We'd love to do more installations, but it is an inherently difficult-to-publicize and risky art form. You don't know what you are going to get until the show is in place. There's a 16-foot tall tornado blowing through the front of the gallery."

Like Bashaw, Regensburger also portrays tornadoes in his work.

"In spite of the fact that so few people have actually seen one in person, tornadoes have managed to burrow into our collective consciousness in a way that makes them instantly recognizable and understood," he said.

He explained that his paintings are often titled based on the Fujita scale, the rating system that classifies the intensity or damage of a tornado.

"When people talk about the sublime in the context of American landscape painting, they're referring to the idea that nature is or can be simultaneously beautiful and terrifying," Regensburger said. "People are often not depicted at all, and when they are, they're so small as to be understood as completely insignificant and powerless in the face of nature."

Regensburger said he hopes his pieces will allow viewers to celebrate and understand the idea of place.

"My intention is that these paintings will, in some small way, help connect our land and our experience into the greater tradition of American landscape painting," he said.

DVAC is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

For more information on the artists, go to Bashaw's Web site at michaelbashaw.com or Regensburger's blog at http://onsummit.blogspot.com.