LeeAnn Seaburg Peery is a sculptor whose work harkens back to Michelangelo’s  slave sculptures — highly polished figures emerging from rough marble — and similar figures by Rodin. She carves abstracted human bodies in marble, alabaster, soapstone and limestone, which she personally chooses from a quarry in Vermont. At their best her sculptures are elegant and sensual; at their worst they are clichéd figures that appeal to sentimentality more than sensuality — like Boucher’s Marie Louise O’Murphy compared to Rembrandt’s Bathsheba at  Her Toilet.



Peery is showing a group of white marble sculptures and a couple of soapstone sculptures in the show Rock Paper Scissors at Grand Impromptu Gallery. The white marble pieces make excellent use of contrasts between smooth and highly polished surfaces and roughly textured and rock-like surfaces, between jutting angles and fluid curves. One called Sensual Woman is the best piece in the show because it is the simplest in form and the most abstract. The more she departs from the illusionist while still maintaining the basic feel for the figure, the better her works are; and the more noticeably they refer directly to the figure, the more clichéd.



Also showing as part of Metal Urge are jewelry pieces by Joni Joachims and Micki Lippe. Lippe’s necklaces are rough looking but delicate metal works with beads and feathers and sticks and other objects derived from walks in the woods (metal, not real sticks and feathers). Joachims makes heavy ornate rings and pendants out of silver with semi-precious stones. If I were a person who wore jewelry, I think I’d like to have some of hers.



As usual, a large selection of works from members of the Grand Impromptu co-op are also included in this show. Among the best of these are paintings and constructions by Becky Frehse and digital photographs by Bea Geller.



In Gathering by Frehse is a semi-abstract painting in oil and mixed media of a river with rocks below and sky above. Words and parts of words in raised letters float in the sky and seemed to be embedded into the rough surface as if they are carved letters pushing out of mud. Slung across parts of the canvas is a fisherman’s net tossed over water. I particularly like that this collage element stands out without being obtrusive or having a tacked-on look.



The best of Geller’s photographs are The Shroud and Factory Pine. The Shroud is a post-apocalyptic vision of a city with a dense growth of trees, brush and moss taking over buildings. Everything is a dull gray with subtle hints of color. Factory Pine, another post-apocalyptic vision, pictures the crumbling ruins of a row of factory buildings on a river bank. Large graffiti tagging in bright colors fill the walls of the buildings. Everything except the writing is colorless. In the foreground, river water washing onto shore has the slick look of highly polished metal or rock.



[Grand Impromptu Gallery, Thursday 4-8 p.m., Friday-Saturday noon to 8 p.m., Sunday, 2-6 p.m., through July 11, 608 South Fawcett, Tacoma, 253.572.9232]