Metal urges

All that glitters sure does look like gold—and copper, and other metals—in multimedia artist Keiko Nelson’s show at B. Sakata Garo Fine Art, 923 20th Street, through December 31. Two curvilinear bronze sculptures, akin to spires adorning a temple or pagoda, glisten with the water spiraling down their greened surfaces. In her paintings, like the mixed-media “Earth,” Nelson pulls out the big guns: the rich, shiny, heavy metals, gold and copper, gleaming rhythmically in ridged, semicircular patterns. Randomly scattered sand and dirt diffuse the tension, mixing into the movement and taking on the precious-metal hues. Nelson delves into other mediums, too. In “Monotonic Garden,” she casts honeycombs in black and white paper, threaded with metallics. Her large clay vessels, some similar to American Indian grinding rocks and others more refined, each offer a simple, powerful presence, standing alone on the floor. For more information, call (916) 447-4276.