HANCOCK – Laura Maze’s paintings are calming. They take you to real and imaginary places, an expanse of beach or a fanciful landscape glimmering with metallic leaf. She calls her exhibition Settling Down, which is currently on display in the Copper Country Community Arts Center’s Kerredge Gallery for the month of September.

Laura earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Northern Michigan University. Though she majored in printmaking she explored various other two dimensional mediums including drawing and painting. She has exhibited her work regionally as well as in Higashiomi, Japan, through Marquette’s Sister City Art Exchange.

Her paintings and gelatin prints are about color and expression; some are straight forward representations, a sway of palm trees, a sailboat on the water in moonlight. Some are more stylized with brush strokes making layered patches of color and playful tree shapes suggesting landscape. Laura says, “My artwork has been a balance between printing and painting, and working with both has given me the opportunity to experiment with medium and process.”

The Copper Country Community Arts Center is located at 126 Quincy Street in Hancock. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Laura Maze’s exhibition is on view through Sept. 30.