"Raw Material (works by Mari Omori, Kia Neill, and Cassie Normandy White)" Mari Omori first captured my eye — and my imagination — as part of a brilliant two-person show at Total Plaza in July. She is Japan-born, now a Houston resident and educator, and she creates delicate, graceful, surprising art through the use of teabags. I quickly forgot the sheer novelty, as the results stand on their own as art. Here she shows a half-ruff, white, so elegant that it might be worn as a necklace to the opening of a world-famous opera. There is what might be an Australian aborigine's flattened kayak, brown, that looks like wood, but of course it's not. And a gossamer sail hung high that might easily carry Peter Pan to Neverland. Kia Neill shows a graceful, delicate watercolor of a tree, with a strong trunk to anchor it, titled Spore Study #14. She has two interesting still-life sculptures: One, Various Fragments of Fossilized Vessels, consists of delicate, broken shells of eggs, perhaps dinosaurs? The other, Opalized Coral, groups what might be small candlestick holders for tapers. Her small wall-hung Partial Skeleton I liked the least of her work, since it lacked grace and came close to repellent. Cassie Normandy White has a large collage, 88 inches by 60 inches, that is festive and exuberant, with colorful petals and flowers, and the bottom left square totally empty, an act of courage that pays off. She also is showing Populations, composed of 25 small individual works arrayed five across and five down. Each image is a double one, so it yields ten across, but I couldn't summon up enthusiasm for it. Through January 10. Hunter Gather Projects, 5320 Gulfton, Suite 15, 713-664-3302, huntergatherproject.com. — JJT
"Texas Visions of an Earlier Time: An Exhibition of Historic Texas Art" In this very large exhibition, there are two historical paintings. On Texas Waters: USS Constitution captures the wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate on its three-year tour from 1931 to 1934, painted by Paul R. Schumann as it appeared in Galveston Bay. The second is a 1936 portrait by Emma Richardson Cherry of her son-in-law, Major Reid. It shows him to be handsome, in uniform, and its warm tan tones here posit the glamor of war, ignoring for a moment the agony in the trenches. Robert Wood's Hill Country Landscape with Bluebonnets, 1940, is compelling, dominating the gallery's central room. The painting's sky is blue and white, with the field of bluebonnets in the foreground and grassy, rolling hills in the middle. There are strong trees, and the contrast between them and the placid, unassuming beauty of the bluebonnets is powerful. Fall Landscape, 1911, by Hale Bolton, is subdued but riveting. It shows largely bare trees, and long shadows from a sun close to setting. There's only a tiny glimpse of a sky, with the quiet, seductive trees generously spaced apart, leaving ample room for a leisurely ramble. Untitled Landscape (Turquoise Mine), by Ruth Pershing Uhler, is filled with rolling, curved black hills, a New Mexico setting, with one cascading over the other. There is a sliver of sky as well as a few subdued splashes of dark red that indicate houses. The raw power of nature here seems formidable in these black hills, perhaps even threatening, but the curves still entice, and the white mist rising from the valleys outlines the curves and may suggest a glimmer of hope. Through December 20. William Reaves Fine Art, 2143 Westheimer, 713-521-7500, reavesart.com. — JJT