JULIA LATANE'S supersize sculptures in "Thither" seem right at home in the vast glass-and-steel lobby of 555 12th St., an office building across the street from Oakland's Civic Center in which the Oakland Museum of California organizes rotating exhibitions of works by contemporary, and usually local, artists. Latané presents four sculpture installations: Shoot is composed of 13 eight-foot-tall bamboolike cylinders. Blade consists of 31 gigantic blades of grass, all curving gently in the same direction, as if stirred by a gentle breeze or water current. Hills and Eyelash Cups are also based on natural forms, but not on any one specific type of plant; the biomorphic shapes and vivid colors suggest space creatures or fantastic underwater life. There aren't any museum guards to warn you against getting too close to the art, so you're free to wander through the forest of bamboo and really feel like Alice in Wonderland. Thumbelina is the fairy-tale reference point Latané uses in her artist statement, but Alice is definitely the more appropriate comparison, given the works' hallucinatory effect. Latané exclusively uses nonorganic materials, such as vinyl, resin, and rubber, in pastel colors you won't find anywhere in nature. The lobby's vast windows make it easy to imagine that we viewers are inside a greenhouse or a fishbowl tended by giants and that we are the little creatures these plastic plants are intended to amuse. Surprisingly, that fantasy is easier to entertain than the idea that the plants are the potentially malevolent zookeepers – and all of our messing around with genetic engineering has come back to haunt us in the form of mutant bamboo stalks seeking retribution. Latané's creations may be strange, but they are the stuff of dreams, not nightmares. Mon.-Fri., 7 a.m.-6 p.m.; third Thursdays until 8 p.m., 555 12th St., Oakl. (510) 238-2200. (Lindsey Westbrook)