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Three Views of the Same Subject 

Painting doesn't have to be a solitary activity. Matt Tomko and Chad Hughes share a Golden Belt studio, and they've shared pictorial subjects with Pamela George for more than a year, offering some fun insight into painters working communally. Each of the "Three Tinters," as they call themselves, has painted the same still life, and they'll show them side by side.

"It's a couple of tomatoes in a bowl, and each of us have placed them differently and put them in different light, with different objects around them," Tomko says. "It's the light that we placed them in and who picked what detail to do on the bowl that make them unique." Tomko's lush, illustrative oils show the subjective warp of his attention, which can telescope out to a full landscape or home in upon a bird's cocked eye. Hughes' more classical style pulls color back, putting it in the service of an almost architectural composition. George's colorful work is more geographic, turning interiors and still lifes into landscapes. The ongoing exhibit in Studio 123 opened last weekend during Durham's Third Friday art walk and closes Dec. 15. —Chris Vitiello