'Native'
June 1-Aug. 4, Lindsay Wildlife Museum

EMERYVILLE SCULPTOR KEN Kalman is fascinated with technique, with how things are put together, and his work bears that out. His meticulously crafted objects celebrate pure abstraction in their form. "Native," however, a show of Kalman's most recent work, represents a turning point, not in the essential style that's informed his work for more than 15 years, but in inspiration: nature, stark and simple. The four pieces in this unique Lindsay Wildlife Museum show, which was programmed as a companion to the international juried exhibition "Birds in Art," are Kalman's first purely representational work; they are all depictions of native California animals. A mule deer, a red-tailed hawk, and a brook trout, all larger than life to varying degrees, are hewn of aluminum and hundreds of rivets. There's a construct of juxtapositions at work in these simple figures. Hard-edged, fabricated metal in the body sections is fused with more naturalistic-looking cast elements for extremities such as hooves, tails, ears, and antlers; the clean, industrial, fastened look of the rivets stands in contrast to the benign faces of the subjects. Factor in the outdoor viewing, and it adds up to work that is hauntingly artful in its capture of animal spirit using a medium as contemporary and inorganic as metal, yet it's utterly accessible, friendly even. Come pat me, the animals seem to say; it's OK, you'll feel better. And feeling better is certainly what the artist had in mind, for himself and for us. "It's helped me make a connection to who I am, and to my disappointment with what society's doing to the planet – it's sort of rebellion," Kalman says. "And people really seem to like them, so maybe in some way they'll help people reconnect with the natural world." In addition to the "Native" show, Kalman will bring his natural-world view to Berkeley – he's been commissioned to forge a seven-foot copper salamander to crawl up the side of the new Artech Building under construction in the burgeoning downtown arts district. Look for it by early August. Tues.-Fri., noon-5 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (summer hours beginning June 17: Tues.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.), 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. $6, $5 seniors, $4 children 3-17, free for 2 and under. (925) 935-1978. (Ann Brody Guy)

'Lost and Found'
Through June 15, 111 Minna Gallery

Every winter the rain floods Christopher A. Ruess's Oakland studio. He takes it in stride, however, and even finds artistic inspiration in the water and decay. A surfer and nature lover, he relishes all kinds of natural processes, even when they interfere with urban life. Ezra Li Eismont, Ruess's friend and art-project collaborator, also lives in Oakland and has developed a unique style heavily influenced by graffiti art and his industrial surroundings. The two of them traded a series of wooden door panels back and forth over the past few months, each one painting and layering new collage pieces over the other's work. The results – 28 mixed-media panels in all – are amazingly coherent, combining Ruess's soft, organic naturalism and Eismont's hard urban edges into a compelling synthesis of form and style. Most of the panels show Eismont's characters frolicking on Ruess-painted backgrounds, but the effect is more dramatic than just the sum of its parts. The elements aren't simply juxtaposed or overlapped; they interact and give one another new meanings. With Eismont's robots and lizards sitting on them, Ruess's abstract circles suddenly look like planets or dandelions, becoming more comprehensible as parts of the natural world. Likewise, Ruess's abstract backgrounds unhinge Eismont's collage and graffiti images from their ordinary meanings, turning a Carnation milk carton or a '57 Chevy into a floating cipher whose significance is known only to the artist. "Lost and Found" also includes almost 20 individual works by each artist, including one of Ruess's scrapbooks, which gives what feels like a very private insight into his working processes. As you turn the pages, the book shows how his seemingly random snapshots and sketches become crucial motifs to which he returns again and again in his finished works. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m., 111 Minna, S.F. (415) 974-1719. (Lindsey Westbrook)