Edna Dapo and Lynn Smith experience the landscape and connect with nature through their abstract paintings.

Dapo calls this series of works “A Conversation with Trees.” She uses bold textured brushwork, zigzagged contours, and rich colors to paint trees as emotional symbols, showing their resilience and solitude.

Presenting nature in a surprising way, she encourages viewers to value its timeless beauty and the conversations it shares with those who listen. Dapo won the Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine Reader’s Choice Award for Artist/Artisan, published in the February/March issue this year.

Smith shares that her paintings “are raw from deep inner feelings rather than intellect.” Her works are expressionistic fields of color filled with recognizable but allusive forms, more an experience of the landscape rather than a conventional reproduction. Vivid colors and brush strokes melt into each other, go flat, and create a dynamic energy.

Smith has an MFA in ceramics and painting from Ohio State and has shown her work in galleries and museums throughout Arizona.

Lynn Smith’s work will be exhibited at Olney Gallery at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Oct. 30 through Nov. 22.

(Photo provided by Olney Gallery)