Three distinct shows just opened up at the Dorsch Gallery, each with its own space and room to breath. Each is also very different from one another. Not for the first time, Dorsch’s sprawling space feels more like a museum than a gallery, with the amount and diversity on display.

In the middle two spaces, the multimedia “Matter of Fact” from Chicago artist Cheryl Pope was the immediate crowd pleaser on opening night (like Gallery Diet, Dorsch unveiled its September show well ahead of Second Saturday). It involves porcelain sculpture, sound art and video of a performance, which was reinterpreted the night before in the Design District. The performance is a literal balancing act. A woman (but as seen on screen, only her torso and arms) stacks white china — teacups, plates, saucers, bowls. It’s an obviously precarious act, reminiscent of a childhood game or a house of cards. Not surprisingly, they eventually crash and smash. The piece is called “Stacks.” In front, smashed porcelain shards make up the spiked floor sculpture. Bits and pieces of the china stick out from the wall to form another. On the wall opposite the video, plates are stacked on a metal rod, which grates and scrapes against the wall as the whole thing swings back and forth. It’s an incredible sound piece. In a room behind, the porcelain has been shaped into numerous spinning tops.

It’s easy to see why this particular exhibit caused a stir. The artist was an attraction herself, wearing leggings crafted from buttons, courtesy of her mentor, the immensely talented and popular artist Nick Cave (Pope is his studio manager in Chicago).

How can plain old painting, mostly black and white at that, compete? It can and does, with large-scale canvases from former Miamian Raymond Saa, in “A Mile of String.” Although he’s moved on to teach in New Jersey, Saa left a permanent imprint on Miami. In one case, when he painted the facades of two houses in Wynwood, one of which becomes the home of the great little art fair during Art Basel, The Yard@CasaLin. Those works are, like Miami, bursting with color.

In the paintings here at Dorsch, the tropical foliage bursting from the canvases are devoid of color -— but not of movement and depth, which is what makes them so interesting. And yet, something familiar from those earlier works made here in Miami remain; for instance, two of the best pieces in the show are oils painted on what looks like the shingles of a house. Another intriguing work is collage, some of the material sewn on. It’s really good to see Saa back in town.

Sculptures in the third exhibit at Dorsch are also sewn together. To create the effect of decaying trees, a yellow-green fuzzy cloth is sewn onto found — or used — material, making pieces that then resemble those forest members of a mossy bog. The colors and textures mix and don’t match, intentionally so. The artist, Audrey Hasen Russell, is in Miami for a Fountainhead Residency.

Although in visually disparate ways, all three artists are crafting an environment — building, stacking, layering, erasing. What an interesting way to start the new season.

Pope, Saa and Hasen Russell are at the Dorsch Gallery through Oct. 9, 151 N.W. 24th St., Miami; dorschgallery.com.