Two Putney artists share exhibit spaces in the foyer and chapel at All Souls Church through July. Susan Parenti captures the energy of vast space in large-format oil paintings, using all the elements -- color, light and dark, brushstroke articulation, texture, shape, and subtle composition -- to create expansive but accessible presence. Elizabeth Lewis’s intricate paper collages describe her inner sanctum. She makes small, layered orderings of symbolic and narrative images drawn from her material world. She processes the public domain -- from magazine to mountain -- through the open filter of her imagination.

Both artists share a life-long reverence for, and dedication to, expression through art. Susan studied at Skidmore College, The Academy of Fine Art in Florence, Italy, and the Art Student’s League in New York City. She acquired a general art education but soon set off in pursuit of her own abstract vision. Elizabeth grew up in Los Angeles, studied at a few small colleges, including Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where she learned some things from her instructors before settling into her personal aesthetic, which she calls mixed-media collage. She’s been living in Putney for the past 30 years.

These two very different-looking interpretations of human life, nature, and relationship to earth make for interesting comparative viewing.