When an artist of such stylistic clarity and consistency as Kathy Dunham has a new show; no one would question the straight forward approach of her trade- mark style. Instead, we all focus on what she has brought to her new work. Ms. Dunham rarely steps away from her treasury of flowers when creating her exciting compositions, although in the midst of these constant themes, we can expect occasional surprises.

As in most of Ms. Dunham's paintings, there is plenty to see in these fine watercolor compositions. At her everyday best, Ms. Dunham mixes highly contrastive values and brilliant colors, as when she is depicting a pair of giant sunflowers filling the majority of a composition or three Matilija Poppies coexisting in a similar space. An example of the latter is the poster art for the Southwest Arts Festival®.

The artist creates these good feeling compositions from sketches and photographs she makes from as close to her studio as Joshua Tree National Park or the beach at Malibu in Southern California to as far away as the Tuscan Hills in Italy or the Flower Market of Nice in the South of France.

"Painting the simplest and most beautiful of nature's creations is a pleasure hard to beat," Ms. Dunham notes. "Where else can we see the best she has to offer than just about anywhere there is dirt and a little bit of water? It all seems so simple; yet the beauty of it all is sometimes just amazing." Ms. Dunham goes on to say she chose her medium because the opportunity to represent what she sees is best seen through the benefit of the combination of opaqueness and transparency along with a wide range of values that water- colors have to offer. "Translucency and the ability to make subtle transitions from one color to another allow me to replicate the best of what I see. I look for the drama." Those strong values mentioned earlier, portray that drama as she makes them so we seemingly are able to reach out and touch.

"From the first time I saw them, Matilija Poppies intrigued me. Their natural beauty, the way the petals dance as the flower opens and the way the light bounces around the wonderful angles and ridges of the crinkled petals surely caught my eye. This painting was the second in a series as I wanted to capture the uniqueness of this native California wildflower.

Native to California, this wild- flower grows from the coastal climates to our desert here in the Coachella Valley. The large white flowers were the heroine's flower in "The Mask of Zorro". But the source of the name dates back to a Spanish Mission Legend. Matilija was the chief of the Chumash Indians. His daughter, believing he was killed along with her lover in a skirmish with the Spanish, went to live at the nearby mission. Upon discovering both men were still alive, she fled in darkness to her home, Ojai, "the place of the eagle". But the soldiers followed her and slaughtered every living soul, except for Matilija's daughter. She lay protected under her lover's body. After the Spanish were gone, she brought her lover's body to the highest peak to nurse his injuries but he died. Years later, a stranger found the beautiful white blossoms guarding the grave of the two lovers."