Botany of a house on fire

Jessica Halonen makes her debut at the David Shelton Gallery this month with Propagating Uncertainty, a meditation on the pharmaceutical industry's genetic manipulations of plants and animals. Halonen teaches art at Trinity University and splits her time between SA and Austin. Her Target series of gouache on paper drawings are marked by wheels of double-strokes, stand-ins for DNA that has been genetically modified. Many of the pieces incorporate elements of representational drawing in a trompe l'oeil effect that contrasts shockingly with the flatly rendered DNA markers. A drawing of a metal tag replete with shadow seems to dangle from the bottom of one graphic circle. In others, realistic drawing of thread is seemingly sewn through the wheel of pastel colored marks. Halonen continues the hybrid study in Sticky Ends, two orb-like sculptures constructed of inter-twined branches (gallerist Shelton says that six tree species are represented). But the target shape of the drawings has become a woven globe that plays a different trick on the eyes. Limned in thin twigs that leave most of the sculpture's volume hollow, it is difficult to discern which stick is in front, which behind. It reads flat. Woven wood has become an arabesque of line, sculpture turned into drawing.

Michael Velliquettes' cut-paper works in the back room continue his interests in filigreed vaguely tribal design work. But there are also small landscapes, filled with tiny people that cluster to form big faces and other shapes, sprawling across miniature landscapes or flying in space. Free, 12-5pm Wed-Sat, David Shelton Gallery, 1115 S Alamo, (210) 787-0260, dadidsheltongallery.com. On view to February 11.