Elise Ferguson
Through May 3 - Elise Ferguson: Striped Knot at Romer Young Gallery. Ferguson's solo show at Romer Young is a revelation of color and geometry as she deliberately plays with space and perception in her two-dimensional pieces. The fact that the Brooklyn-based artist works with pigmented plaster on MDF panels gives her art an added layer of tactility that almost brings it off the wall and into the realm of sculpture as she tests the limits of her materials. Visually Ferguson's work is just highly pleasing too, as the experience of looking at it is similar to letting your eye travel the brain-bending contours of a Möbius strip.
Sarah Sze
Through May 4 - Blurring the Line at 70 South Park. This solid group show is the third annual collaboration between the Mills College Museum Studies Workshop and SF art collectors Lenore Pereira and Rich Niles. Pereira and Niles are notable for their commitment to the work of contemporary women artists, and their collection runs so deep that I don't remember ever seeing a repeat in these Mills-organized shows. This year the concept of drawing serves as a starting point for the exhibition, but the idea expands outwards into sculpture, architecture, fabric arts, even stop-motion animation. I loved the pairing of Pae White's and Nina Katchadourian's spider webs just below Sarah Sze's precariously-perched bird's nest, and there are similarly thoughtful and clever juxtapositions throughout the show.