In "Natural Selection," Kc Grennan, Mary Mitsuda, Noe Tanigawa and Debbie Young reference themes of inner and outer nature, expressed through gestures of evolution: accretion, flow and suspension.

There is something organically random in this assembly, and the result is the kind of complex, noisy yet deep consistency one might find when contemplating a handful of rich soil, an area overgrown with undomesticated vegetation or a seaside cliff. But is this natural selection? Are competitive forces at work in the show? What are the presented works adapting to?

Grennan makes overt and subtle references to the aesthetics of meditative practice through objects and the texts hidden within them. Mitsuda’s and Young’s paintings express narratives through abstract renderings that oscillate between being atmospheres, landscapes and frames of mind.

Meanwhile, by creating objects with sculptural as well as painterly attributes, Tanigawa’s encaustics (works made of melted colored wax) bridge the gap between the other women’s choices of media, completing the conceptual web that links the pieces.

Tanigawa seeks to "act as nature" as she builds up and erodes her wax, creating miniature landscapes that capture the surface dynamics of lava fields and the visual effect of tide pool bottoms viewed through a turbulent surface. She captures several moments of time in single blocks of color, blurred and suspended in midflow, creating object-images that are easier to appreciate as processes than conclusions.

Then again, evolution never ends; it transforms.

Mitsuda works with the idealizations of landscape we all carry in our heads by giving us evocative titles and recognizable palettes and forms as starting points. She then combines repetition and segmentation with a flattening effect to produce something that is part texture and part structure — a kind of skin or shell.

Young’s Jovian cloud-scapes, stormy oceans and blurred views of passenger-window deserts touch on the depth effects pursued by Tanigawa, while keeping to the perspective-free plane of Mitsuda’s work. These pieces demonstrate powerful effects of color and texture whether one is studying the lustrous interactions of pigment and brush momentum close up or at a distance. Each is as unique as a bloom but also clearly derived from a shared "genetic" pattern of emotion and memory.

WITH A WARM hand-tooled feel, Grennan’s sculptures reference the classical naturalist’s tools of observation, preservation and presentation. They are also concrete poems derived from far older spiritual practices. Moving between her sculptures is like moving between lives, from that of a bug among giant drops of dew, to the ancient stone marker of a Miyazaki forest spirit, to a god surveying a tiny hothouse suspended in the void.

The messages within, written on glass-as-water, could be from or to you-as-Creator: "And then the universe opened up behind me." Could this be the original spark of life?

Aha! Eureka! Enlightenment.

Instead of nature, these artists might actually be more deeply concerned with time — arrested, slowed, divided, stretched — which is the underlying medium of evolution and natural selection. Grennan’s meditation machines of moss, glass, metal and wood evoke a bygone era of religious and scientific craftsmanship. Tanigawa creates compact geological records in wax and then striates them with vertical grooves that echo Mitsuda’s grids of quasi-bamboo, arctic ocean and time-lapse sunsets. Young breaks her own trances with undulating carved trails: anti-brush strokes that challenge and disrupt the seamless surface beneath them.

The works are clearly related to one another in technical and conceptual terms, but the multiple potential meanings behind naming the show "Natural Selection" create a risky space for interpretation. It begs the question that asks what exactly is evolving in this space: individual works? The selective process of curation ? The aesthetic ecosystem they share and shape?

I doubt that raising these questions was the curator’s intent, but with the popularity and long history of nature-inspired artwork in Hawaii, I must admit an expectation that the title would indicate operations at a deeper level.

Hawaii’s creative ecosystem continues to support our artists’ individual development, but I will have to wait for an evolutionary leap, the revelation of a missing link or indications of future developments. After all, observing closely and waiting to see what happens is what studying natural selection is all about.