Signature Moves: Perci Chester

An exuberant spirit and accomplished steelworker, sculptor Perci Chester applies both qualities to her work in this bright little show of sculptures and digital prints, closing Saturday at Traffic Zone Center.

Two colorful steel sculptures, "Slinky Chick Rocks" and "Joyride," dominate the lobby gallery. Painted in rainbow hues with gleaming automotive paint, they look like tangles of crepe-paper streamers suspended in air.

Chester describes a third piece, "Wirewalk," as a self-portrait of sorts. A silvery, robotic figure on a tightrope, it is accompanied by a video of San Francisco by Aidan Fraser and music by Gregory Allen Isakov that Chester says allude to her formative years as an artist.

9 a.m.-5 p.m. Thu.-Fri.; closing reception 6-8 p.m. Sat. • free • Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art, 250 3rd Av. N., Mpls. • 612-204-0012 • www.trafficzoneart.com

Two Gardens: Joyce Lyon

An accomplished St. Paul gardener and part-time resident of Italy, Lyon fused those passions in lyrical paintings showing at Form + Content Gallery through Saturday.

Seventeen of the 25 images were inspired by the 2000-year-old frescoes in "Livia's Garden Room," a subterranean bower in the Roman villa that once was home to Livia, wife of Emperor Augustus.

“Lake of the Isles Flood” by Kit Wilson.

Lyon has reinterpreted Livia's pretty salon in atmospheric gouache and oil studies that suggest Edenic scenes — birds fluttering, oranges abloom, low marble walls, a wild landscape in twilight. Her own Minnesota garden is a more prosaic affair seen in impressionist portraits. Together the pretty pictures celebrate a shared passion for the pleasures of gardening that spans two millennia.

Noon-6 p.m. Thu.-Sat.; closing reception 6-8 p.m. Sat., • free • Form + Content Gallery, 210 N. 2nd St., Mpls. • 612-436-1151 • www.formandcontent.org

Kit Wilson: Water, Tree, Sky

A landscape painter by profession, Minneapolis artist Kit Wilson is an editor at heart. Rather than scan the horizon for a big picture, she focuses on nearby details and renders them as graphic patterns on polished wood panels.

She often slices her pictures neatly in half along a shoreline, the top portion devoted to land and the bottom to a mirrored reflection shimmering in water. At the edge of Lake of the Isles, autumnal grasses form a bristling golden thatch along the shoreline and a blousy impressionist blur in the water below.

Elsewhere she ventures to Lake Superior's North Shore to record minimalist rock piles in frozen waters under bleak skies. Hers is a silent, stylized view of nature rendered with perfect polish and emotional restraint.

Noon-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., through Oct. 11 • free • Groveland Gallery, 25 Groveland Terrace, Mpls. • 612-377-7800 • www.grovelandgallery.com

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431