A painted canvas of an open field shimmering in the sunlight is Richard Mayhew's portrait of his grandmother. Mayhew is a landscape artist who paints abstractly rather than portraying the land itself.

"I paint with a spiritual sensitivity to nature. I do not paint subject matter. Portraits of friends may well develop into trees. I capture the essence of nature, in time and form," Mayhew said.

Having begun painting at a very young age, Mayhew said he used direct landscapes as his first subjects. He said he is now more interested in capturing the "mystical relationship -- no size, space, or time identity" in his paintings. There are no people or buildings in Mayhew's works, no references to concrete dimensions.

"They are abstract paintings, called landscapes, because they look like them. Thoughts are transferred from the mind onto the canvas. Space, texture, and shapes comprise his paintings, with no picture of reference. Art is created as he goes along, improvisationally, with no end in mind," said Charles Garoian, assistant director of the Palmer Museum of Art.

A nationally-known landscape artist, Mayhew "paints landscapes without going into the land itself, creating imaginary landscapes," Garoian said. "Yet there is a feeling of familiarity, a place I've been to, yet I couldn't tell where. His soft focus creates atmospheric perspective, and at the same time the image one would see in a dream."

"The purpose of landscape art is to portray a place. It is necessary to have places documented. As art mediums and tools advanced, they became more transportable," Garoian said about how paintings of actual landscapes evolved. "But Mayhew evokes a feeling from a landscape that is not necessarily a place. Art is allegorical of one's own feelings."

Mayhew is a member of the University artist-in-residence program, and has been a faculty member for 12 years. He was elected as member and board member of the National Academy of Design in 1971 and has taught for forty years, his focus on interdisciplinary art.

A former actor, singer, and dancer, Mayhew manifests these arts in his paintings. Painting is the only one of these interests to have survived with him his whole life, because of its "creative solitude. There is no audience or support group. It is meditative, like writing, with unlimited creative freedom. An actor plays for an audience. A singer must change to the musician's tune. A dancer works in a group. But painting is solitary," Mayhew said.

Mayhew's quest for combined art activity among the visual art, music, and theatre arts plots a trail across the United States. Famous New York artists interacted with Mayhew's students in his project at the Manhattan Theatre. He developed a non-profit corporation in the San Francisco Bay area to bring together artists and scientists at a creative research retreat. "Arts should be more integrated, more stimulating," commented Mayhew on the lack of artistic integration in Los Angeles. As the latest stop in his trail, Mayhew is exploring the creative process between the arts and sciences.

Fascination with landscape and people typical of an area has led Mayhew across the world. "People are much more transit now than they once were. A particular type of person was found in a certain area. You had mountain people, valley people, river people. Now they aren't so distinct, but they still contribute to the mood of the area. It's difficult to pin myself down to a certain type, due to so much travel," Mayhew said.

"Mayhew's works are fiction based on reality," Garoian said.