PORTRAIT OF AMERICA

Reception Saturday: For eight years Twin Cities artist Linda Nelson has honed her talents as a portrait painter, capturing likenesses of corporate leaders, community members and idealized families. For her ambitious first solo show, which continues at Robbin Gallery this month, Nelson assembled a "Portrait of America," spanning several years of recent work. Executed in a contemporary impressionist mode, it features families and friends cavorting on sunny beaches, posed in sylvan landscapes and chatting in the cool recesses of flower-bedecked porches. Deferring to tradition, Nelson says she wants her work to be readily accessible and appealing, especially now when the country is beset with economic troubles and has a sullied international reputation. Her "Portrait of America" is, she writes, "a reminder of what we are built on and from where our strength comes." The image shown here, "Winter Lily and Rose," was inspired by John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of children in a summer garden, "Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose." In her lilac-tinted snow, Nelson adds a flash of the lush luminosity for which the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla was famous. (Artist's reception 6:30-9 p.m. Sat., free. Robbin Gallery, 4915 42nd Av. N., Robbinsdale. 5:30-8:30 p.m. Tue.-Thu., noon-4 p.m. Fri.- Sat. through Jan. 31. Free. 763-537-5906 or RobbinGallery.org.)

MARY ABBE