Art Capsule Reviews: "Amy Sillman: Suitors and Strangers," "Ken Little: Heavy Metal, Glow, Bucks & Dough" and "Perspectives 158: Kelly Nipper"

"Amy Sillman: Suitors and Strangers" Amy Sillman paints like she's reincarnated from some squirrelly, third-tier 1950s abstractionist. But I mean that in a good way. Sillman's colors — the turquoise blues, the deep oranges, the bright greens — all allude to fave color palettes from half a century ago and give the work a funky vintage feeling. (She's even named a painting with a big lime green blob Shecky Green, an allusion to the hokey mid-century comedian.) Speaking of squirrelly, third-tier artists, the linear brushiness of her strokes is reminiscent of David Adickes's paintings from around that time. But in spite of all that, Sillman's paintings are really good. Her abstraction is vaguely architectural and figural and dominated by a masterful sense of color. The forms of Sillman's paintings evolve on the canvas; they feel hard-won without looking overworked, and her colors emerge strong, separate and unmuddied. Through November 10. The Blaffer Gallery — The Art Museum of the University of Houston, 120 Fine Arts Building, 713-743-9530. — KK

"Ken Little: Heavy Metal, Glow, Bucks & Dough" Finesilver Gallery is achieving two firsts with its current show. One, it's the first time Finesilver has committed its three rooms to the work of one artist, and two, it's the first time some of that artist's older work has been shown commercially. San Antonio-based Little began as a ceramist and naturally moved into sculpture. His older works, steel frames in the shapes of suits, dresses, trousers and bras, and covered in $1 dollar bills, have a kind of retro-pop feel to them — like something Warhol might've made. But in more recent years, Little's work feels fascinatingly original, particularly his cast-bronze and mixed-media "taxidermy," sculptures that turn everyday objects into surreal trophies. Most effective are Little's life-size jackrabbits made from shoes (all kinds, from baby and tap to tennis and spike-heeled), extension cords, leather belts and neckties, all cast in bronze, as well as wall-mounted deer, javelina and buffalo heads layered in colorful leathers and vinyls, and covered in more shoes. The form has been called "bricolage" or three-dimensional collage. One look at these amazing pieces, and you'll never browse a resale shop the same way again. On view through November 17. 3913 Main, 713-524-3733. — TS

"Perspectives 158: Kelly Nipper" Los Angeles-based artist Kelly Nipper creates works that seem fixated on the recording process, or which use a recording element (audio, film and video) to explore time and spatial relationships (and probably not much else). For her stark exhibit, part of an ongoing series at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's Zilkha Gallery, the intimate confines of Nipper's images and video projections contrast nicely with the volume of gallery space between each piece. Love with the Sound Technician, a series of five nearly identical photographs, documents a hanging mobile made of wire and ice being recorded by two boom mikes in a recording studio. Could it be a statement on the entropic state of radio? Evergreen consists of four large color photographs of a green theater curtain. By the fourth photo, a sound technician has set up two microphones in front of it. According to Nipper, she had asked the sound guy to set the stage for the Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson duet "Evergreen" from A Star Is Born — it's a detail that, once known, might even manage to bolster the piece's banality. The only home run here is An Arrangement for the Architect and a Darkroom Timer, an hour-long video of two total strangers, one male and one female, standing less than a foot apart and facing each other. They don't speak, and it's hypnotic to watch the two attempt to dominate each other, leaning in and out, cushioned by the space between them. But at certain points, there's the sense that they're each thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?" Luckily, we have the luxury of simply stepping away. Through December 9. 5216 Montrose, 713-284-8250. — TS