Lucy Adams jokes that she will paint on anything that stands still.

It's not far from the truth, as her last two shows at a gallery in Fort Langley can attest.

Adams is one of two contemporary artists whose work is currently hanging in the Dimensions show at the Fort Gallery.

The exhibit features the works of Surrey arts teacher and painter Richard Bond, and Adams.

This show exhibits one of her many canvasses of choice that Adams has used through the years - namely glass.

But she admits to having tried to paint on just about anything.

Earlier this summer, for instance, in her show called To Everything_ A Season, she painted on 30 metres of sheer drapery fabric to create an installation piece that filled the gallery.

And to mix it up and challenge herself further, Adams applied to the Langley Arts Council to paint one of the life-sized fibreglass horses in their fundraising public art project called Horsin' Around.

If accepted, she wants to call her horse Equinova and paint it in a theme that has been resurrected several times over in her work - infinity, the galaxies, and stars.

"For several years now, I have been returning again and again to a favourite theme which is the idea of infinite space and time," she told the Langley Advance.

Adam's lastest show, for instance, was inspired by the amazingly beautiful images of deep space being transmitted to the earth by the Hubble telescope.

It continues her "exploration of the wondrous order in the apparent chaos that was produced by 'the big bang'," and consequently her art for this exhibition consists of vivid colours and rich and lustrous textures.

For this show she has chosen to paint with oils on the back of sheets of glass, a technique that requires her to completely reverse the normal process of painting to apply foreground details first and fill in the background last, and also reverse the painting compositionally from left to right - "a brain twisting experience," as Adams described it.

"I paint with oil paints directly onto the back of glass and I do this because I love the vivid and rich colors that can be achieved with this method. The colours stay looking as fresh as the moment they came out of the tube," she said.

"The art has evolved much along the same lines as the rest of my work as an artist in that I think - hope - I am becoming technically more skilled and I know that I feel an ever increasing freedom to play with colour and form and just purely enjoy painting," said the 65-year-old who has been a hobby artist most of her life but who took up the craft full-time about eight years ago now.

She has carved soapstone, and done abstract painting on canvas with both acrylics and oils, not to mention her other mediums.

She first tried this method of oil painting on glass more than four years ago in her South Langley art studio snuggled up against a hill behind her home.

"I am particularly keen on painting on the back of glass with oil paints. With this method the paint appears very clear and intense, an effect that satisfies my hunger for colour, and more colour. For me, colour expresses vitality, exuberance and the joy of being alive. This is what I most want my viewers to experience when viewing my work," she said.

Adams first exhibited this reverse work four years ago, then didn't return to this medium again until preparing for this show.

"The first several pieces presented me with the challenge of releanring the methods required," Adams admitted. "I even decided, briefly, that I couldn't manage it again, but my intrigue with the colours enticed me to persevere, and I am glad I did."

Her showing at the Fort Gallery includes 10 new pieces and three from her previous show, the smallest work measuring 10 inches square, and the largest piece coming in at about 20 by 40 inches.

"It would be very difficult to go any larger, because the glass would be too heavy to manoeuvre," Adams said.

The Fort Gallery - run by a cooperative of local artists - is located at 9408 Glover Rd. in Fort Langley, and it is open Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. More information about this and other exhibits are available online at www.fortgallery.ca.

The Dimensions show wraps up this weekend, on Sunday, Sept. 9.