An idea nearly six years in the making has finally been realized at the Palmer Museum of Art.

Couples Discourse, an exhibition celebrating the work and lives of artist-couples throughout the nation, is now on display for all to see. The exhibit, which will close Dec. 15, emphasizes the phenomenon of the artist-couple. To do this, the partner's artwork is placed side-by-side on display, juxtaposing the couples' similarities and differences in the way each approach art.

"They're not collaborative artists in the sense that they make pieces together -- they are dual-career artists," Joyce Henri Robinson, co-curator for the exhibition, said.

Micaela Amato, the other co-curator of the exhibition, said she conceptualized the exhibition years ago but was surprised to find when her ideas came to fruition, there was a strong continuity between each artist's pieces and their relationships.

There are 21 couples participating in the exhibition and the pieces range from three-dimensional renderings of Rorschach inkblot tests to paintings mapping the westward exodus of "Dust bowlers" in the 1930s.

Aside from the differences, Amato said the creative installation of the exhibition gives the viewer a sense of visual, conceptual and aesthetic territory for each couple's art to create an "interlocking dialogue."

Approaches to art and styles vary greatly, even between couples. Some couples have similar influences, such as whimsical Chicago images, making the similarities between each partner's artwork immediately apparent. And then there are the other couples, such as Mary Lucier and Robert Berlind. Lucier's piece is a video portrait of a deaf man telling a story in his very own animated sign language. Berlind's piece is an oil-on-linen painting titled "Fence, Trees, Raindrops #2" -- the title appropriately describes the artwork.

"You see common links [between couples], but then there are other cases where you kind of scratch your head -- and that's part of the fun of this exhibition, trying to figure out those links," Robinson said.

To help figure out the links, the exhibition provides the viewer with a catalogue of the artists' works as well as backgrounds and connections between the artists.

"The exhibition is multi-layered," Amato said. "You see the artists' relation to one another, then you read the catalogue and see questions that you've posed to them."

Three of the couples participating in the exhibition are gay, and political undercurrents appear in some of their work. In "Memorial to a Marriage," a bronze sculpture of two women embracing, Patricia Cronin memorializes the "legal state of marriage and the conjugal rights that, at this point in time, are denied same-sex partners," the catalogue said.

Individually, no common theme or message was portrayed in each work. Pieces weren't about the actual couple because that's not the theme of the exhibition. A piece could be about love, or it could go so far as to portray "toga-clad actors making their way... to a primordial watery grave," according to the catalogue.

Collectively, though, the exhibition demonstrated a common theme: The reliance of each partner on one another.

"[As an artist] it's really essential to have someone who doesn't undermine you but nourishes your potential," Amato said. "It's essential to have someone who is honest with you and keeps you on your toes."