Artist and painter Susana Amundarain said she has found a very peaceful space during her time in North Dakota where she could ponder the process of time and water.

The result is an exhibition of her art, “Book of Days: Reflections on Time and Water,” that takes the form of an abstract visual journal and includes some works that she has gone back and revisited or revised after more than a decade.

The exhibition is on display through Dec. 16 at the Northwest Arts Center in the Gordon B. Olson Library at Minot State University. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

The exhibit features acrylic paintings on canvas with the occasional collage or mixed media elements.

Northwest Arts Center Director Greg Vettel said her artwork, with layers of bright colors, sometimes mixed with substances like mica that give the art a reflective quality, has a vibrancy to it that can only be appreciated if it is seen in person.

“The answer is always elusive,” said Amundarain when asked about what inspires her, in information provided by the art gallery. “It is particularly difficult because of the nature of my work, which does not rely solely on the beauty of nature, or a response to a particular social subject, or even to the qualities of basic art concepts like color, or space itself.” To her, it is partly the process that begins the inspiration.

“I have to start working, feeling the materials, or sketching something that doesn’t have a plan,” Amundarain said.

After she starts the process, she said the ideas start to connect, questions form and an interplay of space and forms on the canvas begins. “But starting to work is mostly about motivation, and discipline, and love for the work.”

According to the gallery, her paintings, which she builds through multiple layers of transparent color and eroded surfaces, are often accompanied on the walls by what Amundarain calls her ‘sketches.’ These smaller works are created with fragments, paper and bits of color collaged onto canvas and combined with flat color.

“In the exhibition I have included a portion of a project that (husband Efrain Amaya, an MSU faculty member and director of the Minot Symphony Orchestra), my daughter and I had created collaboratively many years ago: a multimedia installation about time, ritual and how we perceive it,” Amundarain told the Minot Daily News. “We called it Clepsydra, which is the old name for a water clock. I invited Prof. Linda Olson (professor of ceramics at MSU) to create an actual Clepsydra to have in that segment of the show, and she made a beautiful porcelain piece (two bowls, a small one inside a big one that holds water) worth seeing, and it works too! “

Amundarain said that Vettel did “an amazing job” designing the installation and the lighting for the exhibition. They have been working on the show for more than a year.

“So, in the exhibition there is also music that you can hear as you see the paintings, an operatic piece written by Efrain at that time, when we were entering the new millen(nium). My daughter, Vanessa Briceno-Scherzer, who is a filmmaker/videographer, had made a video that completed that installation. I was able to rescue it and convert it to digital form, it’s now what I consider an archival video (a little out of the original context.) To make this more accessible to the audience I wrote a description of the project which is also on the wall … My goal with a solo exhibition like this one is to offer an experience to the viewer, a meaningful experience; sensations and thoughts to remember or reflect upon, a window into new perspectives. And if one person feels that, I’ll feel I’ll have achieved a meaningful connection.”

Amundarain is originally from Venezuela. She currently lives and works in Minot and has lived in multiple locations.

According to the art gallery, she holds an MFA from the University of Denver with an emphasis in painting and performance art. She has also studied and explored the relationships between visual poetry and text, which took her to the theatrical spaces of performance art, then scenic design, and later to write librettos for chamber operas with her husband. She has also been a Visiting Scholar in Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, in NYU, New York City. Her work is represented in museums in South America and the United States.