ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Lauren Barksdale Hill’s “Vistas” will be part of the 2009 Visiting Artists Series at the Orange Beach Art Center.

The exhibit is sponsored by Friends of the Arts, July 16-Aug. 29. An artist’s reception will be held at OBAC on Friday, July 17, from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Hill’s work is exhibited in galleries and private collections from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to South Walton’s 30-A.

“Vistas” presents new work of hazy landscapes and natural settings, “all very vague and open to the viewer’s interpretation.”

These swamp scenes and seascapes will be displayed with a variety of other subjects all connected by color and style. The Baton Rouge resident’s paintings are at once contemporary and timeless.

Her abstracts have thick layers of color that give the paintings a sculptural quality.

Many paintings incorporate drawings layered on top of the painted surface.

Her delicate use of lines combined with an unstructured grid of repetitive colors in diverse sizes creates a music of color and form that is quite eloquent.

Hill graduated from Louisiana State University with fine arts and business degrees.

In her junior year, she turned her illustrations into a stationary line, Elle Alexandra, which has since appeared in In Style Home, In Style Weddings and Female Entrepreneur magazines, among other publications.

She was listed as “Hottest Local Artist” on Baton Rouge’s In Register’s Sizzle List in 2006.

Her artwork will be sizzling at OBAC through August.

The Friends of the Arts Inc. supports the educational and outreach programs of the Orange Beach Art Center.

To join the Friends call Gloria Bridges at (251) 981-2227, Susie Leatherbury at (251) 981-3638 or OBAC at (251) 981-2787.

For more information on this and other programs of the OBAC, visit www.orangebeachartcenter.com.

OBAC. is located at 26389 Canal Road, next to the Waterfront Park.