Laddie John Dill manipulates light around austere elemental dunes of sand and planes of metal, creating a dialog of weighty solid materials and shifting lights that results in variable and unique experiences for each individual viewer. This light and dark split-gallery survey combines artwork from Dill’s argon and mercury gas Light Sentences series, a Light Plains sand and light creation, and several new aircraft aluminum wall pieces in the Light Traps series. The combination of materials not typically found in fine art highlights the interplay between intangible and substantial earthy materials, unified into a consistent industrial aesthetic.

Celebrating one of San Diego’s most colorful, prolific, and inventive artists, this exhibition tells the story of Marjorie Nodelman as a person, and discusses the nature of her painting through first person recollections from her closest friends and family. Nodelman’s unique and distinctive paintings are juxtaposed with wall-mounted text written by the people who were in her life at those particular moments.

In an array of eclectic materials and techniques, this dual retrospective presents an exploration through the artistic careers of Robin Bright and Tom Driscoll, two widely acclaimed and collected San Diego artists.

Bright’s sensitivity to materials in his carefully constructed drawings and sculptural forms of foam, resin, metal, wood, and paint lead to a collection of delicate but structured, almost architectural artifacts. Although distinctly contemporary, the items become relics, echoing the aged textures of handicrafts long discarded and lost.

Driscoll forms a different type of contradictory aesthetic. While his creations are equally dependent on exacting craftsmanship, they deliberately take on the form of discarded materials, having been carved, casted, and carefully molded based on items such as fuel tanks, anchor chains, packing cases, and other remnants of instruments that are often left unwanted. His sculptures remind us that detritus and refuse are often worth reevaluation.

These artists bring together a body of work distinctly modern, but touched by time, nostalgia, and curiosity. Playful and idiosyncratic, the juxtaposition of these artists is a visual puzzle.