Soft Sculptures and Free Samples

Alexandra Feit's show "She" is comprised of eight yummy-looking soft sculptures that invite your eyes and tempt your fingers inside to caress their surfaces and nestle among their innards. The pieces, all made up of varying quantities of circular pillowy components, are arranged in traditional modernist grid formations. They do everything in their power, though, to subvert this confining, linear male system. Feit's use of a particularly lush quality of faux fur, rich satins, and gauze in tempting shades of ivory, white, pink, and brown declares space for play through notions of sensuality and touch.

Although the promise of warmth, sweetness, and softness lies at the surface of these pieces, the works are subtly loaded with unpleasant moments. Seven of the nine centered, circular orifices (bellybuttons?) in Polar Bear have been sewn up with orange stitching, the marks suggesting memories of pain. The two remaining holes, however, are still demurely, invitingly open, full of either hope or naivete -- depending on how your glass is filled that day -- that they'll be filled with something equally as alluring and tender. "She" shows through Jan. 30 at the A.O.V. Gallery, 3328 22nd St. (at Valencia), S.F. Admission is free; call 431-8341.

Llisa Demetrios, meanwhile, works in cast bronze to shape her new series of sculptures based on inner core samples taken from the Earth. The pieces, half-cylindrical in form, tower just slightly over the heads of most mortals, putting the Earth's almighty powers back into perspective after centuries of environmental negligence. The markings we find along the flat surface of Demetrios' pieces are similarly patterned -- stylized, cartoony emulations of the aggregate material in drilled samples. The bottom couple of feet of Inner Core Sample IX shows scarlike markings, leading the viewer to consider past events and how they leave their imprint on any body or soul. The exhibit, simply titled "Inner Core Samples," shows through Jan. 30 at the Mill & Short Gallery, 555 Sutter (at Mason), S.F. Admission is free; call 398-3630.

-- Marcy Freedman