For many, the "college experience" runs coterminous to a period of wing-spreading, the creation and testing of a self-defined identity, and learning how to navigate this world as an individual. So as the viewer of an undergraduate art show, you will surely encounter evidence of angst, uncertainty, and hesitant or defiant exploration. Among the developing skills and styles present in the University of Rochester's fourth annual "en(Gendered)" exhibit, you'll also find some strong conceptual work, and identify the fledgling voices of future artists.

The show is co-organized by the Studio Arts Program and the University's Susan B. Anthony Institute, and contains 41 works including drawings, paintings, sculpture, photos, installations, and a book. Few pieces deal with gender directly, but in a variety of ways, all speak about the struggle to self-define. "When I look at the SBAI exhibition this year I'm confronted with the notion that gender and identity is not manifest in how we look on the outside," said Studio Arts Program Coordinator Stephanie Ashenfelder at the opening party. "It's manifest in what's going on in our head. This year's exhibit is a psychological profile of how gender and identity inform our perceptions. It's an exploration of how gender and identity dictate the way we interact with our environment and with other people."

Overt gender exploration can be found in Elizabeth Slupinski's butch/femme photo diptych "The Clothes We Walk In." The images capture two views of a complex woman: a muscular person lifting weights on the left is juxtaposed with the right, in which the same young woman casts a pretty-eyed but defiant stare outward at the viewer. In her artist statement, Slupinski says that female athletes grow up catching a lot of flack for "not being like regular girls," but that "being proud of what you get from all the hours you put in" and "allowing yourself to be confident in the person you are" is what it's all about.

Much of the work hints at a place of individual solitude and reflection, the space between what was and what's coming. Colleen Kaster's "Dreamer," which resembles a younger, "Hard Candy"-era Ellen Page, is a skillful blue-toned painting of a young woman who looks off into the open, streaky space to her right. The wide eyes and rounder face speak to a not-child, not-woman place. In Christine Rose's black and white photo triptych "Document," a hairless, nude woman is seen curled knees-to-chest and pensive-calm; then laying with her face cradled in the hands of a person off-shot; and sitting cradling her head in her own hands. The images move from clear to increasingly speckled with development dirt. Hair remains a persistent method of defining a woman; even the lack of it tells a story, and here it seems to convey both loss and defiant resilience.

An instant security bubble is created through delicate adornment in Macie McGowan's make-way device, "Untitled Apparatus." In this wearable piece, two black-painted wooden hoops are set one inside the other, both are pierced through with thin dowels radiating from center like rays, and ending in tiny black rosettes. The piece is displayed with photos that show how the apparatus is worn as a belt around the hips. "For me, jewelry has always had a function aside from being purely decorative," says McGowan's provided statement. "Among other things, we can define our personal space with the things that we wear. I wanted to create a piece that could reflect that function and define that space literally, while still keeping an element of decoration."

My favorite work in the show is less about artistic skill than conceptual dexterity. Jennifer Bratovich's "Making Sense of Things" is a subtle, cheeky, earnestly honest work that examines what humans are compelled to do: categorize. The wall-tall stack of nine black-framed Venn diagrams are delicately drawn circles in pencil and tiny, almost secret, scribed words, conveying experiences that will resonate with many viewers. Bratovich enjoys the "elegance & simplicity" of the diagrams, which "create visual & conceptual spaces where selective memory & reductive logic attempt to form connections & draw conclusions - [...] constructed history, loss, desire, failure, success, feelings of inarticulateness, trying to relate. They explore the discrepancies - the both/neither relationships - between these insecurities, obsessions, & idiosyncrasies."

In one diagram, two linked circles are labeled "things you can give me" and "things I want from you" respectively, with "a warm body" written in the shared space. Inside only the latter circle are the words "everything else." Another set houses the circles "here" and "there," presumably meaning college and home, respectively. The security of the known world of home (mom's minivan, familiar people, sunshine, good girl) are weighed against the good and cumbersome new (walking, exciting people, rattling windows, autonomy, smoking and drinking). Frustratingly, the top piece is at least two feet above my eye level and unreadable. Whether it is intentionally private or poor planning, the curiosity-tease is maddening.

"en(Gendered): A Group Exhibit About Gender and Identity"

Through February 16

SAGE Art Center, 835 Wilson Blvd.

University of Rochester, River Campus

rochester.edu/College/aah/facilities/sage.htm | 273-5995

Mon-Thu 9 a.m.-midnight, Fri 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Sat noon-6 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m.-midnight