Roughly a year after Gallery R closed its doors on Park Avenue, Rochester Institute of Technology's graduate-student-run, undergraduate-staffed teaching gallery has opened in a new location in the Neighborhood of the Arts. The College Avenue spot shares an entrance with Lumiere Photo's relatively new digs, adding new interest to an already culturally bustling area of town. The debut of the new space was marked with the opening of "Prologues," a strong all-female exhibit showcasing work by three Rochester-based artists and educators.

There is a "very organic dialogue between the three," says gallery director Zerbe Sodervick. It's true that the work flows well together, the formal elements relating to one another in a natural way. Robin Cass, a professor in the glass program at the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at RIT, contributed nine works entitled "Curious Growths." The blown, sculpted, and hand-painted glass pieces are groupings of textured fronds, pods, and flora shapes mounted high on the wall. Each mass reminded me of some botanical wonders found underwater, or the complicated, near-invisible world of a microscopic organism. Cass intended this ambiguity, and is "fascinated by the human inclination to seek out and gather odd and novel objects for personal contemplation and public display," as per her artist statement. The artist began work on this series while on sabbatical in Japan, and these "wunderkammer"-inspired pieces are part of a larger series.

The works are even titled as if scientific specimens: "Crested Vermillion Vibrissae" has parts that resemble sea sponges, others like snail eye stalks. "Polybrachius Ocular Cluster" is all spines and tentacles, with glass spheres capping the stems. "Nodulated Spiny Efflourescence" also has spines and ribbon-fronds, with nubby tentacles and globes. Each of the nine objects, shimmering in the glare of the gallery spotlights, look as though they might gently sway in some invisible current, or expand slightly to draw in and process oxygen from the water.

Elizabeth Kronfeld is an associate professor at RIT and a nationally known iron worker. In this show, Kronfeld's work, "Empty Baskets," is comprised of three large wheelbarrow-shaped vessels, each set upon four stacked beams of railroad ties. The woven-rope baskets were cast in iron; though sturdy, the scoop-like forms will appear for ages in a delicate mid-unraveling state, as moss and sprigs of plant life have already taken hold of the wooden bases. The works speak of a conscious interplay of the handmade traditions and industrial materials and technique. "I am intrigued by the idea of containment; for protection or restriction, to support growth or restrain it," Kronfeld writes in the provided artist statement.

In the back room of the gallery space, Kronfeld's other work, "Linked," dominates the center of the room. Three big, rough, unpolished chunks of Georgia marble are islands connected by a chain of iron thorns, mostly rusted, some polished. Each link is a triangle with spiked ends. The links are small where attached to the rock, and grow to be hefty shapes as the chain moves from stone to stone.

Karen Sardisco is the only artist featured in the exhibit to contribute two-dimensional works. Sardisco is an assistant professor at Monroe Community College, where she teaches drawing, painting, and design. Spread throughout the two rooms of the gallery are Sardisco's 10 massive mixed-media works on paper, layered abstracts made of the artist's private symbolic language for her series, "Parts and Whole."

The works are about growing up in an Italian-American household and the artist's memories of childhood. "As a second-generation Italian-American woman, I have found that the disconnect that existed between private experience and the day-to-day events of one's life have fueled a dialogue that has provided much to explore," says the artist in a provided statement.

The drippy vagueness of the painted imagery reflects the artist's imperfect memory. In "Proof," a wrinkly brain is rendered, the colors shifting from pale to darker browns and golds. "The serious and the mundane collect together, bumping into each other in a primordial soup," says the artist. "Devotion" has trinity knots, pink bull's eyes, and anatomic hearts. "Whorl" is a grayscale work of layers upon layers of spirals and knots. "Happenstance" has geometric patterns, some forming hive-like shapes, spirals, leaves, and is dominated by a vague white wash.

In addition to the two-room space, Gallery R will also have an on-site "dark gallery" designated for animation and film screenings, with seating for an upwards of 70 people, a classroom, storage, and prep space. The gallery runners are researching potential portable walls with which they will be able to manipulate the configurations of the space. The sales gallery aspect that took up one smallish room of the Park Avenue location has not yet been determined for this space, but there is talk of featuring publications and rotating alumni work.

A grand opening for the new Gallery R will take place Thursday, January 12, 7-9:30 p.m., with an artist reception for an invitational exhibition of work by RIT's Arts & Imaging Sciences faculty, as well as students nominated by those faculty members.

"Prologues"

Through January 4

Gallery R, 100 College Ave.

Wed-Sun 1-5 p.m. (closed January 1)

facebook.com (search Gallery R)