The members of the Artists' Gallery respond to the season in the group exhibit "Shades of Summer." Some of them depict lush green landscapes, and one of them, Pat Roberie, even has a pastel titled "The Lawn Mower" showing a mower-pushing guy determined to maintain the grass at a civilized height.
Whether subjected to a trim or allowed to grow freely, nature is on full display in this show. Exploring the colorful options, several of these artists settle on particular colors that speak to the season.
The color purple, for instance, is the predominant shade in two watercolor and ink works on paper by Jing-Jy Chen, "Wisteria" and "Magnolia," which focus on the flowers and don't have any potentially distracting background detail.
Bonita Glaser's watercolor "Purple Iris" prominently places that flower against a solid green background. In Barbara Steinacker's pastel "Dusk," melding shades of purple and blue define both the water and sky.
Colors found in nature become a near-abstract consideration of color itself in Deborah Hoeper's watercolors including "After the Rain," in which melting blues and whites suggest a misty environment.
Watercolor and pastel are, er, natural mediums for landscape-oriented subject matter. Other mediums also prove up to the task.
Among the photographers in the show, Joan Forester's hand-tinted black-and-white photograph "Treasures on the Sand" achieves a watercolor-evocative effect with its subdued blurring of white and gray deployed for its tightly cropped depiction of five seashells on the beach.
A deliberately sharper and relatively more colorful photographic approach is used by Ann C. Eid for "Ancient Tree, Italy," in which the tree's thick trunk is shown against an equally old garden wall; and also by Jerry Weinstein for "Swan on the Moldau," which amounts to a portrait of a white swan proudly resting in a river in central Europe.
And photographer John Stier positioned himself in an elevated hot air balloon in order to capture an aerial view of several other vividly colored balloons in "Balloon Drama II." These massive balloons sport such bright colors that they dramatically assert themselves in the sky.
Those balloons indicate how people explore the natural world, but this exhibit much more often features nature itself. It does so in an assortment of mediums besides the expected watercolors, pastels and photographs.
Denise Tarbell, for instance, has a stained glass panel titled "A Rose By Any Other Name ..." that quietly calls your attention to a single pale red rose flanked by three green petals.
Winnie Coggins' clay "Three Branch Bowl" has a decorative design in which three leafy stalks are set against a blue-green surface.
Nature makes one of its most direct appearances in woodworker Dave McCann's "Natural Edge Box." Rather than going for a smooth maple grain surface, he maintains a rough bark texture for both the sides and lid of this little box. It seems like a suitable container for storing a natural treasure that you've brought indoors.
"Shades of Summer" runs through June 26 at the Artists' Gallery, in the American City Building at 10227 Wincopin Circle in Columbia. Call 410-740-8249 or go to artistsgallerycolumbia.com.