RAPID CITY - "Images of Place: Paintings and Poems," an exhibit of landscape oil paintings by Gary Steinley paired with poems written by South Dakota poet laureate David Allan Evans, will be on exhibit through Sept. 6 in the Inez & Milton Shaver Gallery at the Dahl Arts Center.

The public may view the exhibit and meet the artists at a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, July 10, at the Dahl, with a gallery talk at 6 p.m. Evans will speak after the reception.

The project was inspired by a weeklong workshop in 2003 titled "Celebrating Rural Life through Painting and Writing." The collaboration of these two artists resulted in "pairings" created over two years.

Steinley's paintings depict places and occasionally people throughout South Dakota. Evans wrote poems inspired by Steinley's paintings, using either finished paintings or preliminary oil sketches as an entry point into his own memories and experiences. In some cases, the poem would lead Steinley back to the original site to re-examine the imagery in light of the "lessons" from Evans' poem, and a new painting would emerge. A few of the pairings were the result of Steinley and Evans visiting a site together.