Artist Sharon Farkas has found her way back to art, and her work now has found its way to the Quinlan Visual Arts Center for the Fall Exhibitions.

Originally from outside of Statesboro, Farkas earned an art education degree from Georgia Southern University with the intention of becoming an art teacher. Farkas said knew she was going be a teacher. Plus, she loved to draw. So she combined her two passions.

After teaching for art for a year, Farkas returned to college and earned a master’s degree in library media. She then served as a librarian for a few years before moving to Gainesville and assuming a new job — mother of two children. This left her little time to work on her art.

“For a long time, I didn’t really do any artwork at all,” said Farkas, a member of the Blue Angel Artists Group and Gallery on the Square.

But her break from art wasn’t a full pause. She incorporated her artistic creativity in her home while raising her children.

“Even after I got out of college and didn’t really do any kind of painting or anything like that, I did a lot of crafts and painting furniture and things like that around the home,” she said.

But the power of the paintbrush still called to her. After her children grew, Farkas was drawn back to art. So, she began taking classes to hone her dormant skills.

“I happened to have a friend who was interested in painting also and we started taking lessons together in Gainesville,” Farkas said. “I took a lot of classes at the Quinlan, and it really helped a lot.”

Now she paints almost every day.

Working mostly with oils, Farkas explained she “primarily does still lifes and landscapes.”

As far as her inspiration, she’s “very interested in color and light and composition.”

“I like to see how color plays across different objects when I’m doing a still life,” she said. “I try to work out the composition so that … a person’s … eyes move across the painting but then moves back toward the center of interest in the painting.”

Farkas also tries to get different textures into her painting. But with all her art, she “tries to paint things that relate to her.”

“My paintings are sort of related to the areas where I am in Georgia,” she said.

Quinlan Visual Arts Center executive director Amanda McClure said she was happy when Farkas accepted the invitation to show her work at the Quinlan.

“Sharon is an exceptional artist,” she said. “She is as prolific in rendering landscapes as she is in handling still life subject matter.”

McClure is particularly pleased with the body of work featured in the “Flowers and Happiness” exhibition.

“I personally love how she uses an array of bold and vivid colors, making the work really feel current and contemporary. But it still conveys a softness, delicacy (and yes, happiness) that we have come to expect from work created by her hand.”

Farkas said her display at the Quinlan shows a continuity in color running through her paintings.

“I sort of pin toward the same color palettes with everything,” Farkas said. “I guess the brush strokes in the paintings are probably very similar from painting to painting.”