COURTESY THE CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM Sidney Yee and Wayne Miyamoto show their work alongside Daven Hee at the Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center through Sept. 16. Yee explores the yin and yang of nature and man-made structures in "M Made vs N Made 2," above, an acrylic on canvas.

Paintings, prints & pots

THROUGH Sept. 17 the Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center is showing the works of a trio of artists: mixed-media artist Sidney Yee, ceramist Daven Hee and printmaker Wayne Miyamoto.

Yee presents paintings on wood panels layered with newspapers, magazines and comic books, which create a subtly layered, textured effect. This show, titled "Middle Ground," considers the yin and yang of landscape and man-made structures with nature and houses, bridges and freeways on the same canvases.

Other works feature paintings based on the artist's memories of visits to Chinatown.

Hee's exhibit, "Thrown," features tower forms, large vessels and whimsical vehicles, including "Train," consisting of 20 one-of-a-kind linked cars. Hee's ceramics aren't intended to be utilitarian; rather, they are meant to hold ideas of form and expression.

Miyamoto combines the printmaking techniques intaglio and monoprint with drawing, painting, collage and digital imagery for "A Decade of Prints and Works on Paper." Miyamoto can work for years on one print; he works and reworks his plates to give new life to prints with added layers of ink, paint and collage.

His signature works are vertical vortex forms that are tornadolike in energy.

The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center is located at 999 Bishop St. Gallery hours are 8:30 to 4 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays and until 6 p.m. Fridays. Call 536-1322.

COURTESY THE CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM His "The Sky Is Full of Bones" is an intaglio.

COURTESY THE CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM Yee's "Grandmother" is inspired by memories of visits to Chinatown.

COURTESY THE CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM Miyamoto's "Waiakea-Uka Sequence no. 31" is a monoprint.

COURTESY THE CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM Daven Hee created a trio of tall glazed stoneware pots titled "Coil Pot Orange, Black, Turquoise" for the exhibit "Thrown."