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Pahoehoe by Joseph Slusky. On exhibit at the State Building through October 26. Bending Bureaucracy Sculpture at the City's Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery By Erica Pedersen Tucked away in the corner of the State Building's bustling lobby is the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery. While the space's vision and intent is admirable -- to provide government -funded open exhibition space -- the gallery still has a dry, bureaucratic feel. With no windows, no attendant, and drab lighting, the space is more like an oversized mailroom than a venue on par with Oakland's thriving artistic renaissance. Local artist Joseph Slusky's Steel Dreams exhibition, running through October 26, is vibrant if somewhat forlorn and neglected on a Thursday afternoon. Except for me, the gallery is empty. Alone and inquisitive, I get up too closely to really look into the wild steel sculptures. They flow and curve and bend in ways that defy my first impression of steel. Not always long, cold beams swinging from cranes, steel as transformed by Slusky is voluptuous, unexpected, fluid, and intricate; at once it has wings, sharp lines, and curvy hips. But he does not stop with form; he layers automotive paint over his pieces to add complexity and to further jar the viewer. The colorful imagery is abstract, almost like child's play with crayons, solid colors, and geometric shapes. But they are not simple; the movements of image and structure are mature, triumphant, and surreal. From large to small pieces -- "Cathaxis" is taller than a tall man, "Sitting Bull" is as small as a television set -- Slusky plays with space and fills it with forms and colors that speak of optimism, uninhibited expression, and buoyancy. He states that his art is a "process," a play between metal and "flesh and fluid and bone." And the combination is not impossible. Gallery hours are Mon-Fri,10am-5pm. The Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery hosts open exhibitions, artist lectures and receptions on "Third Thursdays" with the new Oakland Art Gallery. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]