Sarah McRae Morton isn't the typical 22-year-old artist.

As a painter, she's developed a meticulous style that's beyond her years.

"If you looked at her paintings and didn't know who she is, you could easily assume the work was made by a 60-year-old," said Lee Lovett of Red Raven Art Company, 138 N. Prince St. "Her technique is very mature."

And there's nothing typical about Morton's subject matter.

This month at Red Raven, you can view the young artist's latest body of work, "Reflections on the Nickel Mines Amish School Tragedy." But the paintings are not just Morton's reaction to the shootings that occurred at the school house in Bart Township, resulting in the death of five Amish girls.

Morton said her paintings also are a meditation on the Amish as unique members of American society. And as someone who has had close contact with Amish over the years, her sentiments are anything but casual.

The artist is the daughter of Caroline Morton and Dr. Holmes Morton, a pediatrician and director of the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, which treats Plain children with special medical needs.

Morton said she moved to Lancaster County when she was 8 years old, but visited the area regularly before her father established his clinic in Strasburg.

"When we finally moved here, and Dad started his work, I'd accompany him on house calls," she said. "That was the best way to see Dad, since he was so busy."

These regular visits to the Amish community gave Morton a chance to take in the environment, form friendships with some of the children her father treated and quietly study the families' eloquently simple way of life.

"But I'd never paint anything or anyone on site," she explained. "I would draw a lot, but not paint. And anyway, I work from memory."

She took her ideas with her to Europe last year, when the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia awarded her a fellowship study program.

"I study art history at the University of Pennsylvania and also study at Academy of Fine Arts," Morton said. "When the academy gave me the fellowship, I realized I was going to visit all these countries in three months. It was a great opportunity."

She visited the Vatican in Rome, traveled on to Finland and finally, Germany.

"Berlin left a strong impression on me," Morton said. "The city is so sterile, but that makes it evident that something devastating happened there. That's where I became interested in the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church."

The historic church, located in Berlin near the Breitscheidplatz, was built between 1891 and 1895.

After World War II, from 1951 to 1961, a new church was built right next to the site of the old one, according to the plans of Egon Eiermann. It features a cross made of nails from the old Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by Nazi bomb attacks in Britain.

Morton said Germany's wartime art is particularly fascinating to her. She was surprised to learn that many of the country's museums display pieces of the Berlin wall.

"It was just strange," she said. "They're being kept as artifacts in a museum — but they're symbols of something so ugly and repressive in Germany's past."

The young painter began to ruminate about her Amish friends back home and European history as it relates to America's own past.

"I'd think about how the Amish left Germany because of persecution, and how they finally found a home in America," Morton said. "And then I began to think of all the European history we inherited as Americans.

"To me, the Amish represent opportunity in this country, the kind of opportunity they couldn't find anywhere else," she said. "The Amish aren't political in any way or involved in any of our country's wars, and yet they represent the best of what America has to offer."

She returned home in September of 2006. Morton said she was feeling "antsy" and needed to paint.

"Spending that time in Europe made me look at home in whole different way," she said.

But her paintings took on an emotional edge after the Nickel Mines tragedy struck one month after her return home.

"I was at a loss," Morton said. "I mean, what do you do when you don't know what to do? I was also experiencing the shootings profoundly through my parents who were deeply troubled by it all. So, the shootings affected me in a very direct way.

"I reverted to painting to help deal with it," she said. "That's what I know. But I wanted to honor the Amish, so many of the images have a peaceful quality."

"The Allgyers" shows an aerial view of an Amish family seated at the dinner table. Morton's perspective and control over shadow and light make the painting singularly powerful.

"The aerial views and her insightfulness are mind-boggling, really," Lovett said. "She's not offering up typical Amish art geared toward tourists, she's giving an inside view of what these people are really like."

Looking at Morton's oil paintings, it becomes apparent that the artist holds great empathy for the Amish, who are often thought of by visitors as tourist attractions.

One piece, "Of Millers and Magicians," places an Amish boy and girl in what appears to be a theater lobby, complete with a red velvet rope. An ethereal image of Amish farms haunts the background, completing the spellbinding scene.

Morton also addressed the loss of young life with the touching "Of Kings and Fishers," an aerial view of a recently deceased Amish boy lying on a bed surrounded by his family. The child is delicate and angelic, nestled on a quilt with one of the trademark star patterns embroidered in the center.

Morton created another painting of the very same scene from the side. This change in perspective allows one to see children playing on the floor near the bed as adults seem to chatter on about matters at hand. The mood conveyed isn't really despair, but the Amish's reverence for family — in life and the hereafter.

The Red Raven show includes one of Morton's self-portraits on wood. The image of Morton is dressed in black, striking a sophisticated pose as she sits on her grandmother's Victorian "lady chair."

"I'm going to do a self-portrait of myself every year until I'm 80," Morton said, laughing. "It'll be like a photo album of me aging."

Morton, who said she admires artists like Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum and Lancaster's own Charles Demuth, wants to paint the "real America."

"That's why I'm a painter, I want people to know communities like the Amish," she said. "I'm also interested in painting scenes from southern West Virginia where my parents are from.

"I'm not done painting the Amish," Morton said, "But I'll always explore different aesthetics."

Lovett said the response to Morton's show was astounding, and resulted in many sales even before the show premiered last week.

"Her images, not surprisingly, struck a lot of chords with people," Lovett said.

As for Morton, she said people often call her talented, but she doesn't let it go to her head.

"I always thank people, but point out that Picasso was a much better painter than me when he was 13," she said, laughing. "I can be harsh on myself, I guess.

"I just know I want to learn more," Morton said. "And show people real America."

"Reflections on the Nickel Mines Amish School Tragedy," by Sarah McRae Morton, through February, Red Raven Art Co., 138 N. Prince St., 299-4400.

E-mail Carla DiFonzo at cdifonzo@lnpnews.com.