Dallas--Elements of Nature/Nature of Elements is the current theme exhibition at Edith Baker Gallery and - of the several Baker has assembled recently - the finest tuned.

It incorporates recent works by Norman Kary and Vikki Martin of North Texas, and J. Hill of Houston. Martin's works are straight drawings, while the other two artists mix found and fabricated elements, and create assemblages that jut from the wall or stand on pedestals.

Most of the works are small and intricate. They require a close proximity and close, unhurried reading if their subtle, telling details are to be appreciated.

For example, even though Martin's images of seashells, human bones, Asian temples and other poetic subjects can be perceived from a distance, their reverent rendering is evident only upon close examination. Martin's thesis is that temples - places of worship - exist not only in human constructions but in all of nature's forms. At the same time her drawings make it clear that different kinds of artworks also become points of encounter with the ineffable. (After all, what are icons?)

Kary's works express this idea, too. But even as they remind us of the infinite realms that lurk behind everyday situations and things, they also warn us of humankind's seemingly endless ability to disregard and dishonor the transcendent.

They comprise thick blocks of plywood that have been collaged with opaque pictures from books and magazines, and with sketchy black images photocopied on to transparent plastic sheets. The pictures include Michelangelo's representation of God and Adam at the moment of creation, as well as diagrams illustrating sleight-of-hand tricks.

These assemblages further are augmented here and there with different pendulums, including pinecone-shaped weights from mechanical clocks. Resembling nothing so much as crazy timepieces, the works seem to say that time (as defined by humans) is running out - and that now you see it, now you don't.

Kary's new works relate to earlier sculpture made of moving metal hoops and rods, often weighted with rocks. But, where those other works of his seemed like infernal, perversely rational devices, theses new assemblages are more focused and suitably didactic.

Hill's work, with its numerous references to Zen rituals, is somewhat less accessible, But Hills's incorporation of clay vessels (raku-fired and resembling bowls for a tea ceremony) within rough wooden containers, and his evocation of the vessel as both receptacle and dispenser/source is open to all viewers.