Nature inspires a local artist whose work is now on display at Oxide Gallery.

Nikki Coulombe grew up in northern Alberta, Canada, where she says there is quite a bit of wilderness.

Courtesy photos/Oxide Gallery

Polypore Fungi, left, is a painting by Lewisville artist Nikki Coulombe, who has a featured exhibit at Oxide Gallery in downtown Denton. After moving from Alberta, Canada, to Lewisville, painter and photographer Nikki Coulombe found that her muse changed at least a little. It moved from being the Candian wilderness to North Texas Cross Timbers growth. Right, Sounds of Silence depicts stark trees in the snow.

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Coulombe was a freelance artist there before moving to Lewisville seven years ago.

Freelance, Coulombe says, meant she “specialized in not specializing.”

Since then, she’s been trying to make a more consistent theme for her art. The theme she’s chosen is trees.

She takes pictures at places she visits and then uses those photos as a jumping-off point for her paintings.

In fact, she said she has a nature exhibition opening next year in California called “Dancing With Trees,” which is mostly photography.

Coulombe said she has photographed trees in Australia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada and throughout the United States.

But she wants her work to be about more than trees. She said she wants to show human interaction and dependence on trees.

“I really want my work to make a statement, even if it doesn’t sell,” Coulombe said.

Her exhibit will be on display through mid-January at the Oxide Gallery, 501 W. Hickory St. Regular gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

Coulombe will teach basic drawing and intermediate drawing at the gallery in January.

For more information, call 940-483-8900 or visit www. oxidegallery.com .

—Rachel Mehlhaff