It was an appropriately scathing 93 degrees when I walked over to see the Oxford Gallery's celebration-of-summer-themed show, "Green's Apogee," and I unselfconsciously stretched my arms out into the gorgeous air several times, reveling. The poetically titled exhibit brings together roughly 50 artists who have each captured "the warmth and heat and luxuriance" of the prime months in varied media and styles, depicting a range of subjects from "floral to amusement parks to birds," says gallery owner Jim Hall.

Rochester's unfortunate weather situation breeds many professional summer-revelers, and viewers of this exhibit will recognize many thoroughly appreciated scenes and themes of the kinder months, including tables set for outdoor meals, blooming gardens, lake scenes, and even road trips. Peter Harris's "East on the 401" is a crisp highway scene that indicates an early start on a flight-to-elsewhere over terrain blissfully free, for now, of snow.

A reverence for the beauty of the blooming natural world is revealed in the elegant overlay of bruise-hued petals and vessels in Kristine Bouyoucos's "Perennials I" mixed-media print. Wildlife artist Ray Easton contributed three acrylic photo-real paintings of tiny birds who've alighted on delicate twigs. "Vernal Vermillion" holds a scarlet-breasted, red-capped bird paused on a claw-like branch, its form framed nicely within the tall rectangle surface. All crisp detail is in the foreground; the distant-seeming backgrounds of Easton's work are a blur of fresh pale greens and blues or deep, light-dappled greens, simulating the actual limitations of our vision when we focus on something so close.

"Ceremonial Object 2" by John Maul would find a cozy home as the focal point of a deep, secret garden. The cast bronze bowl with shapes and bands cut out is capped with a similarly cut plate, which holds a small central bowl. Set on a pedestal, element-cradling possibilities range from rainwater to fire. I imagine for it uses varying from bird bath to tiny fire pit.

Many of the images speak of humid restlessness, of rising early without grudge from sheets less inviting than in winter, and exploring the world as it bursts into lovely dawn chorus. They convey lazy afternoons, dramatic sunsets, and the indulgences of little clothing, of juice-swollen, sun-warmed fruit, of the free road stretching ahead or the open sky above, bereft of the oppressively low ceiling of snow-clouds we grew to accept for months.

Karl Heerdt's oil work "Alabama Swamp Sunrise" is a glowing, blurry vision of humidity rising from the surface of water below shimmering pink and orange light peeking through a line of dark trees. "Hillside Farm" by Chris Baker reveals a mastery of the tricky, chalky medium of gouache. With layers of verdant hues, the artist paired a soothing, shady scene where bunches of beehive boxes rest half-hidden under the shelter of an ancient tree and a steep, sunny hill. You can almost hear the industrious buzz in the warm, still air.

"Apple Tree and Grape Vine" is a tangled masterpiece in oil by Helen Bishop Santelli, in which winding vines pack the large canvas, and seemingly distant light peeks through the deeply cool shadows of the space. Larger, peeling branches of the tree are dwarfed; here nature is truly wild, untamed, and unmanicured for human consumption.

"Pink Lady" is a cast-glass piece also by Helen Bishop Santelli, using an intriguing material developed by NASA, which responds to different light wavelengths. The glass appears innocently rosy under incandescent lighting, but shifts to an eerie emerald under florescent lights, as Hall demonstrated during my visit. "I think glass sculptors tend to like it because it's a curiosity," he said. But the subject matter - a blush-colored, semi-translucent, elegantly poised young girl with prominent collarbone and shoulder blades, and a round belly that blends into a skirt of waves she kneels within - paired with the shifting color, reminds me of rapidly shifting emotions in the dawn of adolescence.

The entirely serene and lacey "Moonlight and Roses" is white chalk on black paper by Norine Spurling. Bereft of warmth but full of silvery light and shadow, the sketchy cluster of near-symmetrical blooms depicts a bit of mystery; we think only of sun-soaked blossoms and rarely consider the permeating ghost of their fragrance, suspended in the humid eve.

I ended my summer meditations with Christine Barney's "Sunset," a furnace-fired glass and lead crystal triptych of thick blocks, each piece angled so we can examine the depth and interaction of bands and sweeps of pink, blue, and yellow present within. This very depth truly resembles the sky, which is in fact not a 2D painted dome as we imagine, but shifts depending on the perspective of the viewer. The block on the right contains a clear circle that seems to sink through the colors, dipping toward the horizon and dragging them down. In the center block, the circle is further down; and in the furthest left, only a small arc of red remains, giving way to encroaching midnight blue.

"Green's Apogee"

Through August 28

The Oxford Gallery, 267 Oxford St

271-5885, oxfordgallery.com

Tuesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.