To artist Mark Beam, dogs are little hairy people to converse with, kangaroos are armed and dangerous and cows defy gravity. Of course, he's a hit in Hollywood.

Los Angeles-based artist Mark Beam is dead serious about not being serious. His artistic goal is bringing his own form of humor to the world at large via sculptures guaranteed to bring a smile even to the most jaded art viewer. In fact, smiles followed by laughter are the average responses to Beam's work.

"There truly is value to humor in art," he points out. "In a world filled with so much tension and turmoil, I feel that my art is the perfect antidote - a balance for all the sturm und drang."

Beam's pursuit cannot happen quickly enough for him, for it is long overdue. At the age of eight in his native Detroit, Beam knew that he wanted to be an artist. He moved to California when he was 19, and it was there, seven years later, the he found himself once again yearning to test the artistic waters. Working only with materials at hand, he sat down one day and began to fashion a dimensional 3-foot-long fish. But this would not be your typical garden variety fish. Protruding from its side was a man's arm sporting a Swatch watch and tattoo. Beam then gave it a coat of shocking-colored paint eyes created from ping-pong balls. From frustration and papier-mâché came the first of many sculptures which would become his trademarks.

"Making that fish five years ago was a turning point for me," Beam recalls. "I continued to explore working with papier-mâché and eventually incorporated other materials such as fiberglass, masonite and foamcore."

As the days and months went by, the fish became bigger and more colorful. Other animals, too, made their appearances - doing things that only Beam could dream up. For instance, roosters in business suits serving up platters of cooked chicken. Or a sitting dog with a cocktail table top clenched between its teeth. And a 6-foot-high kangaroo brandishing a papier-mâché pistol.

How did these animals become so animated? Says Beam, "I find that there are some animals with such human-like qualities that I like to believe that they can talk and do incredible things. To me for example, dogs are little hairy people. When I work on the dog sculptures, I imagine these dogs and I having conversations. If you have a sense of humor, you can easily find yourself doing the same."

In a spoof of on of Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous paintings, Beam created "Mongrel Lisa" as the ultimate in canine portraiture. He says that he wanted to "redefine the classics" with a twist. Gracefully folded paws spill over a gold frame adorned with dog biscuits and faces peering from each corner. Present also is the subtle smile - but this time it is on a three-dimensional muzzle.

As if dogs were not enough, Beam added Holstein cows to his repertoire as well. He notes, "Because cows are so big naturally, I decided to assign to assign anti-gravity poses to them. This gives even more of an element of surprise to the viewer. Can you imagine walking into a room and seeing an 8-foot-high cow doing a hand-stand on a ball? That absurdity was what I had in mind when I created "Power Cow." Another piece, "Cowabunga," has a Holstein belly-down upon a surfboard perched atop a three-tiered pedestal."

The more ambitious Beam becomes in his thinking, the more attention he draws. In a locale as colorful and stimulating as Los Angeles, drawing attention can sometimes be hard to do.

Take, for example, the star-strewn setting renowned restaurant, Spago. With famed chef Wolfgang Puck as owner, the eatery perched above Sunset Boulevard is without question one of the town's hot spots. It has been there that Puck's wife, designer Barbara Lazaroff, has been placing Beam's sculpture from the beginning of Beam's career. The works have been continually selling off the walls - and into the hands of the in crowd - ever since. The next time you view one of Puck's cooking videos, be sure to check out Beam's sculptures dressing the sets.

As his clientele list began to grow (Robin Leach, Sally Kellerman, Peter Gabriel and Brigitte Nielson to name a few), so did exposure through exhibitions in the West and the Orient. For the second year in a row, Beam's comical menagerie has been deliting visitors to the Takashimiya Corporation in Osaka, Japan. Dogs, cows and fish create colorful conversation pieces in the lobby of this international retailing conglomerate.

"When the company took a survey recently," notes Beam, "it discovered that my exhibit was among the most popular in the past five years. Because of this, I've been asked to exhibit for a third year. Culturally, Japanese find regional American art appealing. Artists from California, for example, are big there because of their boldness in color and subject matter."

Being in Southern California has had its advantages for Beam in other respects as well. A large horse was created by Beam as a prop for actress Sally Fields who played an artist in the film Surrender. Plus, works have appeared on the sets of the television show My Two Dads. This type of alternative exposure has served to expand Beam's audience - many of whom have even surprised the artist. He recalls, "I will never forget seeing a senior citizen carrying one of my 6-foot marlins out of the gallery under his arms. That made me realize that people of every age love humor - no matter what form it comes in."