Abruised, crinkled leaf contrasted with a brilliant orange red background. Water polished smooth grey stones positioned on a vivid gold and magenta canvas. An exquisite golden ginkgo leaf juxtaposed against bold turquoise.

As an artist, Brad Stroman likes opposites. He is taken with the idea of nature in its imperfect beauty being placed beside that which is not natural and still not perfect. Yet, the two forms of imperfection somehow create something that is perfectly beautiful and intriguing.

"I don't just paint pretty pictures," says the Mount Joy artist and retired Lower Dauphin High School art teacher.

Yet, despite trying to avoid cliché beauty, Stroman's work has a grace and elegance that reflects his interest in the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi.

If you don't know what that is — and especially if you do — you'll want to visit Stroman's exhibit of some 35 works of art, ranging in size from a diminutive 4 x 4 inches to a grand 40 by 40 inches. The exhibit will be held through June 14 at Lynden Gallery in Elizabethtown.

"Wabi-sabi is a Japanese Zen Buddhist philosophy on living and how we look at existence. It focuses on all things being imperfect, impermanent and incomplete," explains Stroman.

"Beauty in objects is modest and humble. In fact, nothingness is just as important as the real or tangible world. I try hard to incorporate this philosophy in my austere paintings of nature by using natural objects that would appear to us as being imperfect and humble... a torn leaf or a rounded creek stone or a discarded feather, " he continues.

Putting it on a more essential level, Stroman's work expresses his own intimate relationship with the environment. It is an effort to paint with incredible realism — so real, you feel you can touch it — combined with a thought-provoking composition of abstract shapes, forms and colors. In effect, it is an exploration of what is real and what is not, what is made by nature and what is made by man, what is beautiful and what is beautiful despite its attempts to not be too pretty.

Stroman is a child of the '70s and cannot hide his sincere concern for the environment. It shows in his acrylic paintings and carefully rendered colored pencil drawings. As an artist who continues to evolve, he admits that he is having a great time exploring color after many years of working in black and white and shades of grey.

"Something that comes closer to nonexistence is more exquisite and evocative than that same object at the height of what we consider its most beautiful form," says Stroman.

"As a socially conscious artist, I feel my talents should be used in a way that challenges a viewer to rethink their preconceived ideas about our imperiled planet and perhaps change their behavior or at least become more enlightened to the intimate relationship one has with the environment," he says.

So he carefully introduces the viewer to one single leaf, or perhaps a trio of same species but individually unique leaves, or a nearly perfectly formed bird's feather that could take flight at any moment. His work is a study in symbolism. The leaf is the earth, the creek stones are water and the feather is air.

In nearly every piece, there is the unity of the circle, possibly the oldest and simplest symbol known to man. It has no beginning and no end, and it is shaped as our planet is shaped.

"The circle becomes an opposite element of compositional balance, but more importantly it is deliberately broken or in some way partly disintegrated to impart a sense of the disinterest and neglect of the bond we once had with our life-giving environment," say Stroman, revealing the teacher that he still is.

After 34 years as an art teacher, Stroman allows his work to be the lesson of the day. He holds a B.S. degree in Art Education from Kutztown University and has pursued graduate studies through the Penn State University and Millersville University. He received the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Award, and Teacher as Artist Award. Nominated by his students, he was also named to the Who's Who Among America's Teachers several times.

A Signature Member of the Colored Pencil Society of America, Stroman's work has been awarded by the Colored Pencil Society of America, and has been published in American Artist Magazine, He has exhibited at the Columbus Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State Museum and Susquehanna Art Museum, to name a few.

Stroman's lesson is to look and to learn, to see the world as it is, as it could be and as it should be. As he reminds us, the great American painter Georgia O'Keeffe once remarked, "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment."

Stroman likes leaves.

Brad Stroman: New Work
Opening jazz reception with the Tom Witmer Trio, Fri. 5-8 p.m.
$5 requested
Exhibit cont. through June 14
Tues.-Sat. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Evenings by appt. Free
Lynden Gallery
117 S. Market St.,
Elizabethtown, 367-9236
www.lyndengallery.com