(Enlarge) Bruce Sykes' series of giant wooden rings in "1456" and Breon Gilleran's steel sculpture "Modular Accretions," at rear, are the scene-stealing centerpieces of "Delineations," remaining in Gallery I at the Howard County Arts Council through Oct. 16.

Looking at a sculpture also involves considering how it relates to the space around it. This is really the case for two impressive pieces that anchor a new group exhibit of sculpture, paintings and mixed-medium works on paper now in Gallery I at the Howard County Arts Council.

Unlike many group shows that try to pack too much work into a gallery, "Delineations" allows enough breathing space for the four artists. This is especially advantageous for sculptors Breon Gilleran and Bruce Sykes.

Gilleran's "Modular Accretions" is a floor-mounted, see-through enclosure made from interlocking thin strands of forged steel. There's a narrow entrance on one side that allows you to stand inside this piece and get the full-immersion visual experience.

Whether you're inside or outside "Modular Accretions," its latticework design is so spare and lightweight in nature that you're always aware of the gallery space around you. The interior lighting ensures that the sculpture casts a silhouetted image on the nearby white wall. What could be "lighter" than that?

The modular construction of this piece makes you realize how readily the artist could alter its form. Indeed, two other sculptures by Gilleran explore such possibilities in a smaller format. The artist also has a charcoal drawing on paper, "Phantom Signals," whose black-and-white latticework design is the two-dimensional equivalent of the sculptural pieces.

The other standout sculpture in the exhibit is Bruce Sykes' "1456," which is comprised of seven wood rings suspended in a straight line that encourages you to stand at either end and look through the row of rings.

In terms of the resulting optical effect, it's important that each ring is made of alternating dark and light mini-slats of wood; the rings are large at one end of the row and small at its other end; and the suspended rings move in the slightest gallery breeze.

To look through the lined-up rings is to visually plunge into a tunnel whose spiral-evocative configuration constantly changes ever so slightly. It's the sort of mildly dizzying experience that would give Jimmy Stewart "Vertigo" in Hitchcock's movie.

The variously interlocking and moving lines in the sculptures by Gilleran and Sykes are thematically shared to some degree by the other two artists in the exhibit.

Leslie Shellow's pen-and-ink drawing "Germination" extends across five white panels covering a considerable stretch of gallery wall. This drawing's tightly spaced lines curl and connect with each other in ways that evoke germinating plant life and, even more specifically, floral petals.

Shellow also has an oil painting and a mixed medium work on paper that likewise have imagery that seems like the abstracted treatment of organic forms.

Seeing Shellow's wall-mounted drawings and paintings prompts one to realize the extent to which Gilleran's modular sculptures can be thought of in terms of cellular shapes.

A different treatment of lines defines the fourth artist, John Benvenuto, whose wall-mounted, mixed-medium installation "Stringed Wall With Animated Window" essentially involves the red-painted wall serving as the backdrop for a window-evocative construction. The window and, for that matter, the backing wall have rows of colored string partially blocking the view of what's behind.

All that can be sees through the centered "window," meanwhile, are cloth-covered shapes that are whatever your imagination decides they are. A zipper that's partially unzippered runs up the middle of those covered shapes, but again, it's basically a murky scene that teases you into looking for more than you'll actually see or understand.

This installation may be too busy for its own good, but its ambitious scale and blend of materials prompt a prolonged look.

The arts center's Gallery II has a group exhibit by the Metals Guild of Maryland. This features jewelry by John T. Fix, Patricia Gagliano, Susana M. Garten, Susan Sanders, Wendy McAllister, Lori Meg Gottlieb, Beth Carey, Joyce Fries-Brune, Janet Huddie, Dara O'Malley, Judith S. Pyle, Analya Cespedes, Gayle Friedman, Megin Diamond, Gretchen Klunder Raber, Linda Van Hart, Katy Ginger Franklin, Shana Kroiz and Estelle Vernon.

The "Delineations" and Metals Guild of Maryland exhbits remain through Oct. 16 at the Howard County Arts Council Gallery, at 8510 High Ridge Road, in Ellicott City. Call 410-313-2787 or go to www.hocoarts.org.

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