In "White Noise," the comic 1985 novel by Don DeLillo, two university professors, Murray and Jack, pass billboard after billboard on their way to view "the most photographed barn in America." When they finally get to where they are going, both men feel sudden and inevitable disappointment. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn," Murray laments, "it becomes impossible to see the barn."

This postmodern parable (which makes an appearance in a piece in the MetroHAWAI'I show at thirtyninehotel) could easily apply to the act of looking at art. People line up at the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, and if they see the Da Vinci painting at all, they see it only through security glass, under conditions of surveillance, under influence of myth. Circumstances alter perception. The art we see is affected by the way we look. When we view objects in galleries, we see not only what's on the wall, but also what's in our heads, what we've been influenced to assume.

So what does this have to do with the First Annual Artists of Hawaii Juried Exhibition on view through May 6 at the Bethel Street Gallery in Chinatown? Not much, really. It's just to suggest that gallery visitors should consider their strategies before viewing a show where price tags and award certificates are displayed alongside the art.

On one hand viewers can embrace the fact that juror Mark Kadota — an internationally recognized artist working in a variety of media who splits his time between Europe and Hawai'i (and is represented by the gallery) — has indicated his favorites. On the other hand, if they can restrict their gaze to what's between frames and on pedestals, viewers may be able to see the barn without the influence of all those obfuscating road signs. Either strategy provides its own rewards.

As visitors approach the gallery from outside, they will see glasswork by Jane Raissle that catches the viewer's eye and the light revealed by the gallery's large plate-glass windows. Raissle's work is displayed throughout the stylish, comfortable room, and her gaping "Vessel No. 1" was selected by Kadota as the winner of the juried competition. We assume glass will be inflexible and easy to break, and while there is a delicacy to some of Raissle's curved panels, the artist also communicates movement and mutability through the shapes and curves in her compositions. "Vessel No. 1" may very well be useful for containing liquid, but as it sits in the window with its shades of yellows, blues and browns, we notice the way it holds sunlight more than how well it holds water.

Glass is naturally smooth, yet Raissle uses coloration, shape and shadow to indicate texture. Viewers can admire her as an artist who conforms to and confounds expectations of what glass can do.

The most effective work in the exhibition asks viewers to see the recognizable in new and unfamiliar ways. Photographer John Lutfey's "Hanuman" is a portrait of the Hindu monkey god. Taken during a New Delhi parade, the image captures the eyes of a man struck, for a moment, by the divine.

Phillippe Gross offers "Catching Up," a black-and-white photo of kids running in a circular game of tag. Gross stops the action in time. Viewers see something recognizable, while simultaneously realizing that this particular moment will never happen again.

In the gorgeous "Yuko with Shell," Jean-Jacques Dicker brings to mind a kind of zen Robert Mapplethorpe as he centers his camera on the natural curves of the conch shell held by a faceless, shapely woman at the nexus of her bare legs and body.

Laura Okano offers two works from her "Jazz Series." The bold, gestural paintings insinuate calligraphy and musical notation, yet the longer viewers lose themselves in her brushstroke, the less her work looks like a static image, and suggests more the movement of music. Kasey Klemm crafts bands of copper into flat sculpture resembling woven fiber. Tom Krieger calls his mixed-media collage "Biology is Destiny," and while the title evokes the familiar — the work presents recognizable images of a boy, human legs, jewels and a maple leaf — the artist's composition evokes something otherworldly, funny, slightly titillating, and vaguely disturbing all at once.

Scottie Flamm and Marc Turne, both painters, opened the Bethel Gallery little more than a year ago.

"We wanted to create an intimate space with a small group of artists we're comfortable with," says Flamm. "At the same time, we thought a juried show would be a great way to get to know other artists we're not familiar with."

Intended or not, this theme of mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar is replicated in the exhibition. The featured artists present work that emanates from the recognizable, then speaks to viewers anew.

Timothy Dyke is a writer who teaches at Punahou School.

"Remembering Last Night," is oil on paper, by Lauren Okano.