A visit to the Fulcrum Gallery during the run of its current show ­- “Here and Now” - is, both literally and figuratively, like going for a walk in the woods. Upon entry into the main space one is confronted by the perforated cardboard trunks of trees made by sculptor and installation artist Holly Senn.

As a show, “Here and Now” seeks to juxtapose the work of some of Tacoma’s most well established artists alongside that of some of Tacoma’s budding new talents. By bringing together works from simultaneously active populations in the Tacoma art world (which are often unaware of each other), “Here and Now” seeks to provide a kind of snapshot of this point in time of Tacoma’s artistic renaissance. Funded by a grant from the Tacoma Arts Commission, the show received curatorial assistance from Terri Placentia and Jason Mouer.

Moving through the main space, the viewer is confronted by the well-rooted artists whose biographies are printed out and hung on the walls beside their work. It has taken decades of development and perseverance through multiple stages of life for these artists to now stand like the wise old trees (some more gnarled than others) of the woods.

Susan Russell Hall, for example, spent 27 years in operating rooms documenting the intricacies of human anatomy as a medical artist. Her work as a fine artist is marked by a hyper focus on painstaking technique that is put at the service of a rigid system of symbolism. Her carbon dust drawing called “Tetralogy of Fallot” is a delicate, cutaway depiction of a heart. In the carbon dust technique, dust from the lead of pencils is applied onto polypropylene paper with a very fine brush to create a soft, well-blended effect.

Lynn De Nino, by contrast, utilizes found materials to compile very handmade, three-dimensional works that combine humor with social criticism. “I Only Have Eyes for You” is a shower curtain lined with clear plastic. Stitching is used to make little compartments in the plastic. Each compartment contains a news clipping that gives notice of a registered sex offender.

The show also includes glasswork by Diane Hansen, graphic design by Lance Kagey and a trio of oil paintings by Malcolm Mclarren. The latter calls his pieces “Furies.” Using vintage, 1960s pigments he has done nearly abstract paintings that are meant to capture the fleeting impression of the face of a furious person seen in passing. He gives the example of a pedestrian in a crosswalk who casts an angry look at the motorist who does not stop to give the pedestrian the lawful right of way. (How come so many Tacoma drivers don’t seem to know to stop at a crosswalk anyway?)

If the front gallery is occupied by some of the old trees of the Tacoma art world, the back gallery is mostly devoted to some of the newly sprouted seedlings whose tender green leaves are straining to reach for the sun.

McKell Sansaver, Dylan Buffler, and Ian Wheelock, a trio of young artists tapped from the Hilltop Artist in Residence Program, take their inspiration from such august sources as tattoo art, comic books and graffiti (move over Van Gogh). Wheelock (age 13) is particularly adept. His 4 sheets of comic book scenes are full of dynamic activity and bold dashes of color.

A quartet of SOTA students (Ben Achziger, Stephanie Shaffer, Miranda Gust and Fred Novak) are showing works from a school assignment to do self portraits in the style of a great master. Rembrandt, Fouquet, Botticelli and Caravaggio were chosen. Novak’s innovative depiction of himself as a figure from Caravaggio’s violent painting “Judith Beheading Holofernes” is lively and humorous. He shows himself as Judith wearing a missile bra copped from the pop star Madonna during her vintage lingerie phase.

Louise Blake crowns the wall of works by the young artists. A set of five cropped and hand-painted photos shows a figure - the titular “Olivia” - from a series of angles.

Though he is one of Tacoma’s well-established artists and a colorful figure in Tacoma’s art scene (he does quick drawings of people at bars and gives them away to his unwitting sitters), Teddy Haggarty is in with the youngsters. Haggarty is like an old sugar maple; a wise old tree but with sap still sweet enough to pour over your pancakes.

Haggarty’s hearts and stars, and moons are right out of a childhood lexicon of symbols. His work retains a direct line to a colorful and easy simplicity of something primordial. His big print “Woman, Penguin, Butterfly” depicts a penguin and a female nude standing in front of a colorful backdrop of valentine hearts. The nude holds up a butterfly whose wings hide most of her face.

With its emphasis on artists’ ages, life stories and the sources of their inspiration, “Here and Now” is a literary experience as much as it is a visual one. It is through reading the wall tags and the art statements that the disparate elements of the show are made sense of.

“Here and Now” runs through Aug. 14 at Fulcrum Gallery which is located at 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. For further information visit www.fulcrumtacoma.com or call (253) 250-0520.