The Dabbert Gallery celebrates the February Gallery Walk on Palm Avenue tonight with the opening of two one-man shows from artists James Griffin and Robert Baxter, entitled “The Color of Life” and “People Places, Fascinating Faces” respectively. Each with a dedicated room inside the gallery, the artists will be in attendance tonight for an opening reception, mingling with interested viewers and evening revelers, answering questions and telling stories.

In one room hangs Griffin’s work, immediately eye-grabbing in all its splendid color. From the landscapes, dancing between realism and impressionism with great expanses of cloud, beaches and sky, to the more intimate moments, such as the vibrantly colored Sulphur Cockatoo glimpsed amidst broad tropical foliage, Griffin’s mastery of color and light is on full display. Viewers would be well-advised to take a closer look at Griffin’s creations, as the artist has in the past several years taken to adding an abstract level to his style, invoking geometric shapes and musical patterns in his compositions or even, in the case of Golden Tree Fantasia, layering cut squares of gold leaf on the painting. It’s subtle but effective.

“The concept has several origins, but the main one has been a desire to capture some of the thoughts and feelings that surround me when I’m painting,” said Griffin of his developing style. “A strict representation doesn’t do it for me and total abstraction lacks the realism that’s so important.”

In an adjacent room, watercolors and oil paintings from Baxter cover the walls. More figure-driven than Griffin, Baxter’s focus is more on the human element, capturing quiet moments in his subject’s lives such as a nude woman sipping coffee in a patterned kitchen in French Press or a redhead sitting alone in a piece entitled Pensive. Just as Griffin’s time spent in Peru and Brazil comes through in his work, it’s easy to see the French influence in Baxter, who would typically divide his year between a home in Connecticut and a place in southern France near Provence before switching to Sarasota for his snowbird tendencies. Two of his street scenes hang side-by-side in Dabbert – one a picturesque French corner café, the other a group of beachgoers combing the Venice sand for shark teeth.

“Not everyone can do what he does,” said David Dabbert, owner and operator of Dabbert Gallery, of the intriguing faces populating Baxter’s paintings. “He captures personalities.”

The opening reception begins tonight at 6pm, with Spanish rumba group Los Rumberos providing the musical accompaniment, strumming on the sidewalk, and the Dabberts bringing their house-mixed champagne punch. “The Color of Life” and “People Places, Fascinating Faces” run in the Dabbert Gallery until March 2.