Images Julia Pinkham sees today might not appear in her paintings for years.

"I keep sort of a visual diary of things that influence me," Pinkham said. "It's kind of unconscious for a while, then I find it coming out in my sketches. Later, I understand how come, but it takes time. I don't know why I'm attracted to certain forms."

Pinkham, who lives in Oxnard, has a studio at Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo. She works in acrylic and mixed media and paints her abstract surrealism paintings in series.

She is exhibiting 27 pieces from her "Furniture Migration" series in a show titled "Transitions," through Aug. 31 at the Downtown Center for the Arts in Oxnard.

A common element in this series is chairs: long-legged, upright chairs, softer edged, comfy-looking chairs, some grouped around tables, some standing off by themselves, sometimes just lines suggesting a chair, all shrouded in misty color.

"I worked on the chair series for a year," Pinkham said. "It was after my dad died, kind of processing of the loss. For some reason the chairs kind of captured that, the things that get left behind."

The series before that was titled "After Images," inspired by the smoky residue from fireworks.

"All the patterns, the trails of smoke were way more interesting than the fireworks," Pinkham said. Lines in these paintings mimic the wisps of smoke, twisting and turning into ethereal designs.

Her newest series is rooted in urban images, triggered by trips to older areas of Los Angeles.

"It's a little more abstract," she said. "The scope is a little more urban landscape, has kind of a midcentury modern theme. There is a little retro thing happening with the colors."

Some furniture shapes appear in the new paintings.

"I don't like to go back, but I find I bring things from previous collections and there is a moving forward," she said. "I'm doing some similar shapes but experimenting with different tools and line-making media. I like to lay down different surfaces and then see how different tools and pencils make different kinds of marks," she said. "I sharpen chopsticks to do sgraffito on slow dry medium."

Born and raised in Ventura, Pinkham's background includes greeting-card, jewelry and textile design for companies in California and New York. She published a series of nature encyclopedia coloring books for Stemmer House, and she owned a handpainted clothing business for 12 years. In the beginning she sewed the jackets and vests herself, but then hired a seamstress so she could focus on painting the bright florals, birds and tropical designs.

"That was what really taught me how to draw and paint," she said. She got a rep in the California Mart and got accounts with boutiques at tropical resort locations around the world.

But then Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai in 1992, wiping out the stock in her biggest collection.

"I took that as a sign to start doing paintings," she said. "I was ready to switch to fine art."

She studied with James Jarvaise at Oxnard College.

"He filled in all the blanks for me," she said. "He put it all into context for me. I can still hear his voice, It has to be interesting. If it's not interesting, it's not worth working on.' He always had a way of zeroing in on the problem point."

In starting a painting, Pinkham says she usually has an idea of what she wants to attempt, but the process of working takes over.

"I go back and forth between allowing things to happen and stepping back and seeing what's there, and the work unfolds."

She usually begins with line drawings, then adds dark shapes and plays light and dark forms off each other until it gets interesting, she said.

"If I like something too much, I will have to bury it because it will subjugate the whole painting to that area. If I am too attached to it, I have to walk away or cover it up," she said.

"I listen to music. I start drawing and kind of moving. What comes out is what I have been seeing or feeling, experiencing, what I have kind of buried behind my eyes. The painting starts from there — I start taking away and adding. Sometimes I have to set a painting aside until something sort of clicks. Sometimes it takes working on another painting to find what the first painting needs."

Pinkham recently exhibited at the Artamo Gallery in Santa Barbara. She was accepted as a member of the Los Angeles Art Association last year and has been a member of SCIART since 2000.

A reception for "Transitions" is from 5 to 7:30 p.m. today at the DCA, 329 N. Fifth St. Concurrent receptions are planned at the nearby Carnegie Art Museum, SCIART West and Café on A, providing an opportunity to meet various artists.

— To recommend an artist to be profiled in this section, contact Nicole D'Amore at ArtProfiles@roadrunner.com or 405-0364.