The Marion Art Center’s next exhibit will feature abstract paintings by Susan Strauss and Alison Horvitz. A reception honoring the artists and their guests will be held on Friday, June 3 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Cecil Clark Davis Gallery.

Susan Strauss, whose studio is based in Westport, has a degree from Cornell University. After college, she painted backgrounds for the Boston Ballet, helped build a blimp that flew around a New York City Disco, worked on a prizewinning short film and as a personal chef. She studied Shiatsu, architectural rendering and faux finishes. Eventually, she started her own business hand painting custom decorative finishes for clients, decorators, and photographers. Strauss has work in many private homes and public spaces. In 2014 she earned a post baccalaureate painting degree from UMass Dartmouth.

Of her work Susan says, “I paint from direct observation and contemplation of both inner and outer landscape. When I go outside to paint plain air, I may return with an abstract painting of that experience or a meditation on weather.”

Horvitz studied painting at Boston University, Rhode Island School of Design and UMass Dartmouth. Most recently, her work was selected for Danforth Museum’s “Off The Wall” annual juried exhibit and The Blanch Ames National Juried Art Exhibition, in North Easton. She is the curator of Fall River’s Cherry and Webb Art Gallery as well as the founder and coordinator of Fall River’s Open Studios.

Her work begins as a sequence of related and interdependent actions, which are connectors to what comes next until a resolution is reached. She said each painting serves as a guide of intuitive mental and physical processes, telling a story about what has occurred while simultaneously unveiling what is yet to come.

Of her work she says, “The history of my obsessive process is intentionally exposed in the surface of each finished piece. A well-articulated composition, based on a traditional sense of balance, chiaroscuro and space is the result of layers upon layers of pouring paint and mark making.”

In addition to the exhibit, members of the Marion Garden Group will present floral interpretations of the artists’ paintings. The arrangements will be on display as long as the blooms last.

The Marion Art Center is a not-for-profit organization located at 80 Pleasant St. The gallery opening is free and open to the public.