Santa Monica

British artist Bill Woodrow, whose funky sculptures are made of castaway objects, spent a few weeks in Seattle last year and concocted a new group of works freighted with sociological meaning. In “Let’s Eat Fish,” dowdy green men’s jackets from Goodwill are stuffed into holes in a sheet-metal mountain range to become “foliage.” A metal silhouette of a lake balances on metal letters that spell software and fish , allusions to old and new economic forces in the Pacific Northwest.

“The Big Book” mingles imagery evoking fire and water to carry an ecological message about human responsibility: On top of a gigantic volume, blue glass sea creatures incised with a human hand and a world map clamber over “glowing” orange and blackened coals. In “Back to Earth,” a long “river” of gold leaf running a few inches off the floor is supported by tiny found objects--eating utensils, a baby shoe, figurines. The piece seems to be be calling attention to the small, ordinary events that support the flow of the economy.

“Covering Ground,” the most fully resolved piece of sculpture in the show, is a pointed diatribe against the excesses of consumer culture. A cart holding an upside-down TV set balances a pecking bird with a briefcase balanced on its tail. The cartwheels bear the words running and forever . A harness paved with gold coins is attached to a phantom horse evoked via a scaffolding of metal “feathers,” as precarious as a house of cards. (Fred Hoffman Gallery, 912 Colorado Ave., to Nov. 18.)