Ed Pieters has for a decade been...

SAN DIEGO â€”  Ed Pieters has for a decade been a significant figure in the use of handmade paper as a sculptural medium. Earlier, he had worked with the more traditional materials of welded steel and wood. But encounters with handmade paper pioneers Charles Hilger in Santa Cruz and Harold Paris in Berkeley influenced Pieters to take up what was then a new material for contemporary, three-dimensional artistic expression.

The greatest appeal of paper for Pieters was the rapidity with which he could express ideas and feelings. The paper pulp medium, which is in many ways like clay, responds immediately to a hand guided by imagination.

His works have most often been wall-oriented reliefs of layered, undulating and rough-edged forms, tinted in a limited but subtly seductive palette.

His new works at the Circle Gallery in Old Town (2501 San Diego Ave.), however, represent a radical departure from earlier ones. Titled as a group “Vanishing Point Series,� they are Pieters’ “minimalist� works--geometric and monochromatic.

Working with flat, white sheets of handmade paper, Pieters creates illusions of volumetric rectangles viewed simultaneously from several perspectives. He has used embossing for low relief. But, for a more spectacular effect, he has cut into and lifted major areas to create high relief.

In several works, he has laid gold leaf in the negative areas, creating an appearance of luxury and drama. The more successful works are the most chaste--pure white. But the most beautiful include pewter leaf as a complement to the paper’s matte white.

The exhibit continues through Feb. 22.

Ron Williams’ “Palace Guard,� one of four site-specific installations downtown in Sushi’s series of public sculptures, “Streetsets,� poignantly fulfills its purpose as social commentary.

Placed in the Community Concourse, it is a sandbag structure surrounded by wire, aiming posts and constructed and painted shark fins and bullets. Inspired by the artist’s experience in Vietnam, it symbolizes the search for shelter and protection during the war, not aggressive action.

It is even a visually pleasing structure, an effective composition in red, white, black and olive drab.

In the context of the plaza, however, it appears ambiguously vulnerable and threatening. It is a reminder of an American tragedy and a rebuke for the neglect of the continuing problems it created in our society.

Ironically, the bunker is close to a group of signs indicating San Diego’s distance from its sister cities. On battlefronts, jokesters used to post the mileage home.

Also in the Community Concourse is Michael Schnorr’s “Fence Border Line Boundary.� A cyclone fence is topped by coiled barbed wire and is stretched between a silver pyramid and a dead tree. On one side are three chairs painted red, white and blue; on the other are three chairs painted red, white and green, symbolizing the opposite side of the border. Taped sound tracks are supposed to present ideas on public spaces and social interaction and prerecorded sounds from the border, but they have been silent. (The problem, Sushi spokesman Larry Baza said, is being worked on.)

Though modest, the work is visually arresting.

Williams’ and Schnorr’s works have an aesthetic presence that shames their environment.

The works are on view through March 7.

Social commentary also appears in the paintings of Alexia Markarian at San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park.

Generally composed of discordant images, they are threatening statements about social and sexual disjointments in our society, varying in degrees of seriousness.

In “Hamilton Beach Folly,� for example, a woman faces a choice between a luscious cake and a slim body. In “Playground Lessons,� the choice is between sports and sex. “Graffiti� is a terrifying image of a bloodied black man lying on the ground and a leering, chartreuse-faced, redheaded woman. “Free Fall,� with a shark, a cow, a California bungalow and a semi-clad woman, gives additional food for thought.

The exhibit continues through March 1.