Burnished metal art is like glass art in this respect: It's natural beauty can be so enticing that the artist doesn't really have to do much of anything. It's so easy to get by with just a nice surface. Luckily for visitors to Fulcrum Gallery, artist Devin Reynolds brings a nice aesthetic sense to his brushed metal work in his show, "Caustic Compositions."

A wall statement in the gallery says he uses such unusual materials as brushes, a custom paintball gun and a flamethrower. The individual pieces are all labeled as lacquer and acids on aluminum. In other words, Reynolds uses various caustic substances to erode and corrode and otherwise mark the aluminum surfaces of his pieces. The marks he thusly creates are remindful of sky and water and clouds. Many of them look like star fields, planets and galaxies.

Read Alec Clayton's full review of "Caustic Compositions" in the Weekly Volcano's Arts section.

FULCRUM GALLERY, CAUSTIC COMPOSITIONS, THROUGH FEB. 15, NOON TO 6 P.M. WEDNESDAYS, FRIDAYS AND BY APPOINTMENT, 1308 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAY, TACOMA, 253.250.0520