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It’s an eclectic and fun summertime mix of Introductions 2006 at the JayJay gallery, 5520 Elvas Avenue, until August 5. Sara McCoy’s diminutive bronzes pull you in to meet her little doll-like figures—which are more than a little intense and even border on the scary. In “Sunday School,” a prim figure, topped with an oversized head and an oh-so-somber countenance, stares at you with eyeballs that swim in their huge sockets. It’s an eerie, unsettling combination, and you just have to take another look, but when you catch sight of the little ponytail perched on the back of her head, your chuckle breaks the tension.

Although the vertical movement of color in Kim Squaglia’s aqueous paintings sometimes recalls Clyfford Still’s work of the ’50s and ’60s, this local artist has captured her own entrancing, 21st-century technique by layering oils with resin on wood. The result is as if she had painted on layers of glass, so that her paintings reveal dreamy, intricate, multifaceted imagery, all under a polished surface. “Nepethne” takes a neo-mod spin with vibrant fuchsia and green organic structures. When Squaglia sands the resin in between layers, as in “Amphora,” she loses the depth. But it fades away, leaving a sandblasted effect almost equally as satisfying.

Tamara Scronce’s work may change dramatically in medium from piece to piece, but the continuity lies in her focus on balance. To wit, Scronce’s graceful, oversized pendulum of smooth, pale wood, “Plumb Bob.” In a more humorous vein, she couples papier-mâché and beeswax to create a fat, amorphous banana shape that moves across a cable. For more information, call (916) 453-2999.