“When I was in middle school, I really wanted to be a microbiologist,” says Charles Clary, explaining his fascination with microscopic organisms. When the context around them gets taken away, the images take on new meaning, inviting the viewer into another world, another reality. The Tennessee-based artist traded test tubes for scissors and now works exclusively with paper, producing intricate three-dimensional formations inspired by the organisms that captured his eye as a youngster.

You’ll find some of his work at Brett Wesley Gallery this First Friday, when Clary makes his solo Las Vegas gallery debut with Paper Forms. The exhibit features 23 pieces, all made solely from individual sheets of paper and adhesive. Clary says one of the works took five days of 10- to 12-hour shifts to complete (another not featured in the exhibit took him a month and a half). It’s the painstaking attention to detail that makes Paper Forms something to behold. If you’re headed to First Friday this month, why not get lost in a new reality?

Paper Forms Through September 28. Opening exhibition September 5, 6-8 p.m. Brett Wesley Gallery, 433-4433.