Theme with ill-fitting variations

“Salt of the Earth’’ is Montserrat’s biennial “New Art Collective’’ exhibition, in which the gallery asks Boston area curators to tap artists for the show. This year’s theme - the low-key directness implied by the show’s title - is too vague. The works don’t connect. Some stand out, and others don’t stand up.

Camilo Alvarez, owner of Samson Projects, chose the team of Alexi Antoniadis and Nico Stone. The pair grew up together, and their clever, understated work wickedly evokes the environments of their youth.

Kristen Dodge, director of Judi Rotenberg Gallery, brought in Lorna Williams, who is on that gallery’s roster (Antoniadis and Stone have shown at Samson Projects; apparently there were no restrictions on commercial gallerists promoting their own artists). Williams’s collages on wood panels grow ever more dazzling and visually layered as she deftly fits gaudy, patterned pieces into the loops and streams of woodgrain.

David Curcio, invited by Montserrat Gallery’s assistant director Shana Dumont, deploys printmaking and needlework to create his dark but fey pieces. They affectionately recall 19th-century cross-stitch samplers, but they’re freighted with grief and violence. “Heart’s Delight,’’ for instance, revolves around a silhouette of a woman with an ax driven into her skull.

Any regular gallery hopper will recognize plenty of the work here. Zach Storm’s dreamy, small-scale drawings ruminating over a breakup were at Judi Rotenberg Gallery recently. Montserrat Gallery director Leonie Bradbury chose Storm. I’ve seen many iterations of Deb Todd Wheeler’s project, which invites viewers to craft bright flowers out of plastic bags and plant them in a foam elephant. It’s good, participatory fun, not to mention green, but it was more fun the first time. Leslie K. Brown, curator at the Photographic Resource Center, invited Wheeler.