I must confess my love for our local art scene. I have state-wide pride, and the current show at the MAG is egging me on. The six Western New York artists invited to participate in the third "Rochester Biennial" vary greatly, but are each seriously strong in concept and technique. And this show sees the debut of a new treat: the cell phone tour. By using your mobile, you can listen to recordings of the artists contextualizing their work. For those who don't have cell phones, transcriptions are available at the admissions desk.

The first of the six mini-shows contains immense grayscale greyhounds. Oswego professor Juan Perdiguero chose to work with the imagery of this breed of dog both for its expressive face, and for the metaphor that the racing dog implies: the competition, the confinement, the disposability. Interesting is his approach to the creation of his mixed-media reductive drawings, which appear photographic at first glance. The artist exposes photo-emulsion paper and lets the resulting markings, kinetic or calm, determine the body language of the dog he skillfully renders in ink. His artist statement describes that the "tense calmness or frenetic flight" reflects "the chaotic condition of our urban environments and consumerist culture".

In her examination of our complex cultural relationship with mass media, RIT photo professor Susan Lakin blurs the line between the "two alternate dimensions" in modern life: the "one in the television screen and the other of the room containing the television," according to the provided statement. In each of her life-sized photo portraits, a television screen reflects the owner(s) of the box on the inactive surface, at times simulating a family portrait, while in other scenes the subjects are preoccupied with their private lives. By digitally removing the camera from the reflection, the optical illusions play with the boundary of public and private life.

In dreamy manifestations of nostalgia and inner worlds, book artist and printmaker Sue Huggins Leopard's meticulously crafted and mysterious visual narratives combine garden motifs, old family photos, and lines from Emily Dickinson. My favorite of her offerings is a captivating book entitled "Furia," a complex linocut print with gouache and watercolor. Rapt by the emotion she is able to convey with her perfect attention to detail, pattern, and color, I interpreted the heavily symbolic panels to move in urgent drama through the vast scope of time and history, from pristine nature, to our arrival, to a wasteland aftermath.

Ronald Gonzales has us surrounded, and meditating on the mortality of the object. Upon stepping into the gallery space reserved for the Binghamton University sculpture professor, the viewer find herself encircled by an army of metal stick figures with found-object heads that resemble the conceptual love-brood of the Island of Misfit Toys and Alberto Giacometti. The 235 figures, all created this year, form an installation of foot-high soldiers that runs round the room, as well as two larger-than-life-sized figures that face one another in the room's center. Each figure's skeletal frame supports a bulky "found head"; the objects are all manner of man-made cast-asides, and have an eerily focused presence for their lack of eyes.

Navigating the lushly chaotic labyrinth of imagery in Melissa Sarat's colossal and explosively colorful oil paintings is like playing I Spy, or stumbling upon Dionysus' forbidden garden party. The packed picture planes are inhabited by the unmistakable abundant flora and fauna of her Louisiana childhood home, as well as masked and costumed individuals who combine themes of power and madness (the artist was raised on the grounds of a mental institution). Sarat's feral characters, which she describes as "fierce guardian archetypes," possess a certain knowledge behind wild eyes, and symbolically combine mystical religious influence with her concern for the harm we cause to the environment and our own health.

Cornell professor Todd McGrain is also disturbed by the damage we do, even when we know better. The recent extinction (between 1844 and 1932) of five North American bird species is the subject matter of his elegant, elegiac sculptures, which stand in a sacred ring like totems or monoliths. With no small amount of will power viewers respectfully kept from running hands over the smooth lines of the far larger-than-life birds, until we were informed that McGrain encourages viewers to touch the art, and we enthusiastically let loose. The artist-turned-activist paired the framed story of the extinction with reproductions of his haunting drawings of the birds. His art had me trying to fathom life without the white noise of birdsong, especially the miraculous dawn chorus in the city that I too often take for granted. The ultimate goal of his opus is to install each memorial sculpture at the locale where the each bird was last sighted.

Though very different in style, a nuance of a thematic thread can be found running through the work of these six artists - that of our interaction with the world, and our powers to transform and make meaning of it, whether environmentally, materially, or technologically. Many artists ask us to think, to question the meanings behind and resulting from our actions. Four of the artists will be giving lectures in July and September; check the MAG's site for more information. 

3rd Rochester Biennial

Through September 14

Memorial Art Gallery

500 University Ave.

276-8900, mag.rochester.edu

Wednesday-Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.