When only six local artists are chosen from thousands to be featured in a major exhibition by one of the most important art institutions in town, there's bound to be some hurt feelings and sore words uttered. Some suffer from sour grape-poisoning; others are just plain baffled by the selections. Sometimes I can empathize, and though I'm familiar with and appreciate the work of most of the artists, this year's "Rochester Biennial" left me fairly underwhelmed.

Curator of Education Marlene Hamann-Whitmore says the three-person selection team chose six well established regional artists they considered "at the top of their game." Half of the artists have been highlighted recently in big shows: Anne Havens caught the MAG's attention with her "Box of Sighs," featured in the museum's "Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition"; married couple Julianna Furlong Williams and Lawrence M. "Judd" Williams were featured in Rochester Contemporary's "Maker(s)/Mentor(s)" show this year.

The "Biennial" is essentially six solo shows; first up is "Scourge," Julianna Furlong Williams' mixed-media-on-paper series, inspired by the 1918 influenza pandemic and things "no one wanted to face" or discuss, she says in her artist statement. Williams makes her point with effectively off-putting, violently messy energy and imagery, including real medical masks, rows of simulated blood samples, her ubiquitous rabbit-victims, viruses, and lungs. "Flu and Tops" has a puke-green background, an enlarged cluster of virus cells, ghost lungs, and toy tops - classic imagery of hers - like tiny tornados of infected breath, spinning out of control.

In his section, "Ambiguity," A. E. Ted Aub juxtaposes "clarity and enigma," and symmetry with the off-kilter. The skilled sculptor uses symbolism and palindromes to insinuate initially obscure meanings, and many of the cartoonishly round, heavy bronze sculptures themselves are anchored with wedges, implying a precarious stillness. "Azuma" is a startled, truncated head lying at an angle, with Olive Oyl hair, exaggerated proportions, and a tiny sliver of a tongue poking from a gaping mouth. The armless, large-bottomed man of "arounD thE clocK tonighT" lies on his back, legs in the air, nude except for shoes and hat. He glances vaguely down his length, giving the odd impression of an infant waiting to be diapered.

Anne Havens' "Grace" is a collection of prints, paintings, and mixed-media sculpture, as well as light and sound installations. Cotton gloves and latex paint make up the two huge, Willie Cole-esque "Wings," anchored to the wall, the "feathers" made of so many down-pointing fingers. Havens' most interesting piece is actually three works: giant head cookie-cutter "Cloner," illuminated from below to gain a sort of halo; "The Hostess Invites You to Partake," a tray of cookies topped by a smaller version of "Cloner"; and "Clone," a framed giant baked cookie, placed between giant parentheses.

"Grace" is the source of that chiming heard throughout the gallery, and is located in a narrow alcove off Havens' main area. A low-hanging mobile grid of suspended silverware continuously bounces sound and reflection due to a small fan and light set on the ground. Across the room a video installation shows slow-motion video of the mobile close-up. The installation works a pleasant effect, but recalls the repurposed silverware wind-chime craze from local craft festivals a few years past.

Much of Lawrence M. "Judd" Williams' works in "Reclamation" are large, dash-of-Louise-Nevelson wall pieces made of carefully fitted slats of recycled lath. The order of the clean lines of "Grand with Nest" is broken up by the tangle-y found object framed in the upper square; the nest mirrors his own work of collecting scraps and arranging them. Central installation "Stacked Land" caught my attention: tall and precariously piled thin slices of rough and unpainted lath become towering slices of southwestern cliffs, weathered monuments revealing time's striations, dominating man-made structures sprawling below. These are represented by orderly, green-painted wood, resembling modern domiciles.

Rick Hock is an image packrat who collects and re-shoots pictures in order to juxtapose them and create "new possibilities for meaning," he says in his artist statement for "Connections." Relationships between image, concept, metaphor and pop culture result from concerns that "reflect my generation's cold war dread of alienation and a lifetime of bombardment by images from television," he says. Image-installation "What I Say Goes" includes (and equates?) a shot of a web page promising to explain "How to hear and discern the voice of god" with the alien-culture "I want to believe" slogan and flying saucer. A central table holds sketchbooks, images, and objects "that the artist has accumulated for potential use," according to a wall plaque.

Walking into Alberto Rey's "Waterways" room is like being presented with dessert after a plateful of lima beans. I like the complexity of lima beans, but the impact of sugar is more immediately pleasing to the senses. Oh, and shout-out to the lighting designers who worked on this room. Rey's five mammoth, poetic, glowing, oil-on-plaster paintings are inspired by the artist's fascination with the "sad irony and elegance" in the life and death cycle of Genesee River steelhead. The works are paired with a long video of the Genesee, above and below the surface, providing a sense of place as we examine the art.

Four paintings are of larger-than-you fish; three are dead, but no less beautiful than the eerie, hesitant creature confronting us in its own element. "Aesthetics of Death: VIII" shows a rainbow-hued fish rotting half-submerged in the river's shallows, set against mud-brown stones and twigs. Rey's quasi-Impressionist brush strokes build vivid color from surrounding blackness, the faded border of which matches our peripheral vision almost perfectly, so the image effectively fills our entire focused field of vision. The scale of the art is impressive but begs that size-matters question. Yep, I'd still love them if they were small.

Cell-phone tours at many of the show's works provide insight in the artists' own words. Visit mag.rochester.edu to find out dates of the "Art at 11" lectures by five of the six artists.

"4th Rochester Biennial"

Through September 26

Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave.

$4-$10 | 276-8900, mag.rochester.edu

Wed-Sun 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Thu until 9 p.m.