Santa Monica

One form often invades another in Tom Butter’s construction-material sculpture. An oval tub pokes through a curved slab of wood in “Passage,” a leaf-like shape is split by a roll of metal lath in “Buoy,” while “Door” has a wood spiral encircling a real door. Clunky and roughly fashioned, these works (and five others) lumber around the gallery with all the grace of an overweight teen-ager. To their credit, they also exude a fairly spirited presence that’s the result of visual movement and unpredictable components. Strolling around, you find a wood surface bristling with staples, a wood protrusion in a fiberglass wall and the twisted form of a wire mesh funnel. All of which adds up to an intriguingly awkward batch of work that seems worth watching.

Phoebe Adams’ more polished work taps into sculpture’s classical tradition by using a revered material (bronze) and a form that signifies technical prowess (drapery). But two of the three works shown look inept, if freighted with important intentions. The third, a tall bronze called “The Waste is Ours,” is topped by a flourish of drapery which surrounds a pitcher pouring dark fluid that lands on the floor in a puddle. Combining traditional form with a contemporary message, this piece seems to have come from an inquiring mind. But when Adams connects drapery to a turquoise sphere in “Any Time Now,” or a pair of lumps to a bronze “rock,” in “One Time Tracer,” the concept is muddled. (Pence Gallery, 908 Colorado Ave., to May 7.)