Kris Lowe: The Back Story

Opening Saturday: Beyond its exploitation as a patriotic cliché, the eagle has a reputation as an avian architect and recycler. Minnesota artist Kris Lowe pays tribute to these less well-known attributes in a new drawing series inspired by her research into eagles' habits, especially their monumental nests and the things they re-use each season in constructing them. Atop her drawings, Lowe builds intricate webs of grass, thread, shredded paper, stamps and currency that add visual interest and psychological nuance. She also employs historic stamps in assemblage constructions built on the backs of prestretched art canvases. Poetic musings about the intersection of natural and human history, her drawings and assemblages unearth the "back stories" to be found in ragged fragments of the urban landscape. (Opening 6-9 p.m. Sat. Douglas Flanders & Associates, 818 W. Lake St., Mpls. Free. Ends June 7. 612-791-1285, www.flandersart.com.)

Mary Abbe