Local galleries traditionally open their doors to new talent in July. Patterned after San Francisco's successful Introductions exhibitions, Sacramento's program has dwindled this year to only a few galleries. Though the pickings are slim this year, both b. sakata garo and Jay Jay offer a look at some promising newcomers, drawn mostly from graduate and undergraduate programs at California State University, Sacramento, and the University of California, Davis.

At b. sakata, Laura Ball gives us a look at a series of jarring and intense narrative paintings of women in combat. The nude and seminude figures tussle in bedrooms, in one case fighting over a shoe, in scenes that mix aggression and low comedy.

Inspired by Japanese prints and the boxing paintings of George Bellows, the compositions play with the asymmetry and jagged rhythms of the former, and the dramatic clashing of bodies presented by the latter. It's an odd combination and one that immediately draws one's interest. Ball uses a dark yet raw palette that seems more symbolic than observational, striving for emotional rather than optical truth.

Though compelling, there's something ludicrous about these images of blunt, simplified female figures kick-boxing and taking pratfalls that diffuses the sense of menace implicit in the works. Maybe it's just that we can't really believe women would brawl like macho teenage boys or that the stakes -- a shoe? -- are so low.

Hong Zhang presents a series of fragile, surreal paintings that express the social and ideological changes that have taken place in China over three generations: her grandmother's, her mother's and her own. Zhang uses bird cages and shoes as symbols of the suffering and joy of women from three eras.

In one grouping, bird cages, connoting restrictions and constraints, serve as the heads of surreal figures, each with an identifying image within. Her grandmother's cage is filled with a serene image of the Buddha, her mother's with a portrait of Mao, and her own with a shadowy fetus, suggesting both China's one-child policy and her own nascent development as a modern Chinese woman.

The relationship between men and women is the focus of another group. Zhang's grandparents are symbolized by an image of a tiny embroidered shoe for a bound foot perched atop a heavy boot, signifying the way her grandmother was controlled by and reliant on her grandfather. Her parents are depicted as equals, with her mother's cotton shoe and her father's military shoe placed side by side over repeated images of Mao. The relationship between Zhang and her husband is wittily marked by a high-heeled Chanel shoe superimposed over a man's shoe, which stays in the background and serves as a support.

These images could be seen as mere exercises in Magrittean surrealism, save for the extreme care with which they are done and the delicate, transparent quality of the traditional Chinese material -- rice paper, ink and watercolors -- that Zhang uses.

Mark Fox Morgan displays a series of unframed collage and acrylic paintings in rich, saturated colors. In their their wrinkled and rutted surfaces, they suggest relief maps. Unfortunately, they don't show well on the gallery's red brick walls, which swallow them up. The strongest are "Guest Residence," whose painterly surface reveals a palimpsest of cartoony doodles, a map, submerged texts and the word "see"; and "Fishing for Miss Edmeades," whose earthy, rusty tones are broken by markings that suggest cave paintings.

In a crowded show that is a bit too big for its space at Jay Jay, several up-and-comers stand out. Richard Martinez offers a series of paintings on wood, cut out in frilly patterns and employing decorative images -- patterns of foliage and the like -- on rich, tactile surfaces of luminous color. Seductive, sensual and somehow silly in a charming way, they are totally unexpected works. Surprising too are Moira Murdock's spunky, screaming-red wall pieces made of fiberglass and fake fur that suggest bodily sources -- a male torso and a female torso with a deep belly button.

Departing completely from the Northern California tradition of funk art, Dutch-born Nelleke Beltjens presents several works made of cast concrete and steel that have an elegance and formal integrity reminiscent of Bauhaus traditions. Set on the floor, her small forms make one think of architecture, modular dwellings arranged with classical poise. At once beautiful and sterile, they suggest isolation and anonymity without becoming either repetitive or didactic.

George Bows offers a restrained yet raunchy ceramic and mixed-media piece in the form of a panel covered with a photocopy design that suggests pajamas on which a series of plates with subtle glazes are mounted, so that when the light is just right you can see inscriptions that are not suitable for a family newspaper.

Its snide humor contrasts with Lauren Kline Ari's life-affirming installation of small ceramic figures, at times suggesting angels, arranged to form a human head on the wall. These tiny figures, reminiscent of European and Mexican folk art figures, have a kindred feeling to Kandinsky's emotionally rich abstract paintings. Titled "The Gift," it has a nurturing, spiritual presence.