Local artists Susan Edquist and Helen Ozment are April's featured artists at the Campbell House Galleries. The two met at a class at the Artists League of the Sandhills, and their friendship grew when they discovered they shared many of the same interests. And while they work in very different styles, they are linked by their love of the use of color and painting the places they have visited.

The exhibit, "Double Vision," opened to the public for viewing on Thursday, April 5. Because the Campbell House Galleries will be closed on Friday, April 6, and Monday, April 9, in observance of Easter, the opening reception for "Double Vision" will be held Friday, April 13, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The Southern Pines Civic Club, Nancy Spencer, Perry and Carey Sharpe, Burt Ozment, Ro and Chuck Kackel, Janice and Karl Kruse, and Janet and Clyde Burdick host the reception, which is free and open to the public.

The exhibit is on display through April 30, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., weekdays, and from 2 to 4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, April 21 and 22. The Campbell House Galleries are located at 482 East Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines.

Susan Edquist received a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of Maryland. She began painting after moving to London, England, in 1999. Since settling in Pinehurst in 2002, she has painted regularly in her studio overlooking her garden that blooms year-round. She is also an art instructor for the Pinehurst Recreation Department.

Through numerous classes, Edquist has explored a variety of media, including watercolor, dry and oil pastels, and oil paints. She is currently studying landscape painting with Bob Way of Pinehurst, focusing on capturing color, light, and shadow to create the feeling of atmosphere.

Edquist strives for the painting principles, as taught by R. H. Ives Gammell (1893-1981, American realist), of beautiful workmanship, fine drawing, sensitive rendering, and balanced composition.

Edquist has received awards and recognition of her work from the Arts Council of Moore County's Fine Arts Festival, the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, and the North Carolina State Fair Professional Artists Division. She has had solo exhibitions at the Artists League of the Sandhills and the Sky Gallery in Aberdeen. Her work is currently displayed at the Gap Creek Candle Company in Southern Pines and is a part of numerous collections in the Sandhills, across the United States, and in England.

Some of the paintings Edquist plans to exhibit at the Campbell House will depict the beauty of the North Carolina landscape and the amazing shapes and colors of flowers.

Helen Ozment studied commercial art at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has also studied with Donna Vogelheim, Susan Kell, Bill Herring, Skip Lawrence, Don Andrews, and Joseph Fettingis. Her work has been juried into shows at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Association and The Scarab Club in Michigan; has been honored with a purchase award and third place prize for watercolor at the Arts Council's Fine Arts Festival; and has been exhibited at the Artists League of the Sandhills. Ozment's work is held by private collectors in North Carolina and Michigan.

Ozment has dabbled in art since early childhood and began painting in watercolor after retiring in the early 1990s. She prefers the watercolor medium for its free-flowing properties that can produce interesting abstract results. Her style ranges from abstract to impressionistic but always reflects the use of a vivid palette. Flowers and fruit are usually her subjects of choice, but Ozment also enjoys interpreting the landscapes and people of the places she has visited around the world.

For more information about the April exhibit, contact the Arts Council of Moore County at 692-4356 or visit the Web site at www.artscouncil moore.org.