Gary Justis at the Elmhurst Art Museum

For 30 years, Gary Justis has made kinetic sculptures from aluminum sheet and extrusions, small electric motors, wire and plastic. Often anthropomorphic in appearance, his contraptions explode into action, stop unpredictably and seem sometimes to lose their composure. Justis's explorations of mechanical cause and effect also comment cheerfully on the human condition. In this recent show, Justis dispensed with mechanisms and exhibited large, cartoonlike organic forms whose wooden frames he covered with stuffing and brightly colored upholstery fabric. The forms, which imply movement, come from the artist's childhood memories of shadows created when car headlights shone on his bedroom wall.

Three sculptures filled the museum gallery. Inspired by Hokusai's The Great Wave, the 5 1/2-foot-tall floor piece Splash (2006) is composed of two identical waves arranged back-to-back, like mirror images. Covered with velvety blue upholstery fabric, the work is irresistibly tactile. The Nader (2006) is a 12-foot-tall suspended construction of unfinished Masonite, sound-absorbing board, plywood and steel. According to Justis, The Nader recalls the family dog that would jump on his bed in the morning to wake him up. A large oval floats at its center and two smaller ones, tilted slightly outward, hang below on either side like droopy ears. With its comically overbuilt framework, the piece becomes a study in abstraction when viewed from the back.

The 12-by-3 1/2-by-3 1/2-foot Untitled (Mantis), 2002, suggests a giant amphora, or a woman, or a plant, or a diving fish. Two vertical ellipses at the top of a curvaceous body lean diagonally outward as if ready to fall. These can be read as breasts but they cast flowerlike shadows on the wall. Mantis's body is covered with over-the-top lime green upholstery fabric, except for the insides of the ellipses, which are buttercup yellow. The stuffing and covering make Mantis caressably plump like a baby's belly. The work sits atop a wooden platform more structurally elaborate than seems necessary. Humorous overstatement is a Justis trademark. These sculptures are wonderful fantasies, crisply conceived, beautifully constructed and bursting with life. What's not to like?

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