Whenever I walk into a group show I always try to discern a theme, no matter how diverse the art. But I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume that a group of people living in the same city at the same time might share some similar concerns. Though not all of the 36 works by the 24 artists selected for the MAG's "Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition" adhere to this theme, I read many to be concerned with the tension in our struggles with nature, and with our own differing natures; the "other" and attempts to connect with it.

Benjamin Entner's "Still Life: Graphite on Paper" is actually graphite on Tyvek shaped into various forms and inflated by with fans. The mammoth grouping includes an elephant facing the wall and climbing over a cube, a lower-case letter m, a carrot, a whale, and a large picture frame up against the wall, from which the figures are all perhaps emerging. No artist statement is provided, leaving us to craft our own meaning, but I like how the impossible-to-ignore giant "elephant in the room" relates to some of the more political artworks.

David Mount is not at ease with the nature/urban boundary. His series of four small photos, "Not at Home," depicts nighttime scenes of oft-overlooked-by-day "marginal terrains besides roadways and the corners of parks," which at night become "places that are natural but lifeless, uncanny substitutes for nature with the beauty of a forced smile." But to me, the images allow nature to reclaim land so mundane and almost useless during the day, making the places a bit more alien and foreboding, with artificial lights just off view of the shot creating a haunting glow.

The craftsmanship found in Eric Serritella's ceramic, trompe l'oeil sculptures "Sassy Birch Teapot" and "Swinging Birch Teapot" is hard to fathom - I would have believed the pieces were crafted from actual tree stumps. The artist says the pieces represent a "love of nature and Buddhist principles of harmony" and "nature's triumph of existence, regardless of the disregard we have shown her." With unbelievable attention to detail and texture, the peeling, curling limbs end at tree "hands" bent down at the wrist as if to say the havoc humans create ain't no thang.

Matthew D. Woodward's "Seventh and Perry" takes up an entire wall with three nearly identical, ghostly graphite-on-paper renderings, each made of four panels to form a square. The drawings read like obsessive studies from memory and dream, of a secret, apprehensive encounter in the near-distance, an alien organic castle. The poet-artist says his work "represents remnants of a former grandeur [...] as if the city reflected an absolute abundance but which now seems abandoned in its ghostly, self-amnesiac labor of renewing the world."

A few of the artists work with the concept of the "other" within human society. On the cell phone tour (a transcript of which is provided by the gallery), Paul Brandwein explains that his ceramic and acrylic painted "Orange Yoni" is a Hindu symbol for the feminine aspect of creation. Much of his work focuses on the vaginal form, though he can never quite say the word. The surface is coated with electric colors and lines like crackling energy, with the center like a river of blood rimmed with luminous bright yellow. I'm always impressed with his lady-reverence - with so many objects to worship in this day and age, Brandwein is bringing us back to the basics and our origins. The form reminds us of the mixed relationship humans have with feminine sexuality: it's treated as essential and sacred, but also filthy and taboo, and the owners of the magical V have suffered because of this.

Barbara Stout says her ink on paper "Shift" is "part of an ongoing series of larger-than-life androgynous portraits" with "ambiguous gender attributes [...] expressing the radiant essence in each visage." Stout seeks to "celebrate the human spirit beyond gender roles, and express in a physical form the spiritual paths that espouse the divinity of androgyny." The face of a young adult is not only gender neutral, but racially ambiguous, too. Stout has imbued the lovely subject's calm, heavy-lidded dark eyes with a sense of self-possession, like the bearer of a great secret. Gender and sexuality persist in causing so much unhappiness in human society, but Stout wins the war by combining dualities within one dignified, beautiful face.

Rarely does a video installation captivate me, but Yvonne Buchanan's six-minute film "Territories" held me with a mix of curiosity and discomfort. The video is about "looking but also being observed," where crows in their environment serve "as a metaphor for ideas about privacy and surveillance." Vigilant white circles chase the birds as they hop around on wintery branches to the haunting dissonance of ethereal wind, metallic beeps, and a cacophony of familiar raaawks. Each circle trails the bird until it flies away, giving the voyeuristic feeling of a world controlled. At the same time, the viewer is filled with suspense until the tree is empty, and the shot fades to black. "An important subtext of this work concerns race," says Buchanan. "In popular culture of the past, Black people were depicted as crows. Here they are singled out and targeted in a subtly sinister fashion." Yes, this is still an issue, only slightly less so since the 1960's. The tension is not going away until everyone looks at it, owns their part of it, and puts their back into healing the rift. This is your society limping along under the burden of racial tension. You should care.

Many of these artists endeavored to tackle the glaring issues humanity either ignores, or has only just begun to address. When alienation and apprehension are acknowledged, the audience is not left without a sense of hope.