AUBURN - The Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center opened its doors Sunday afternoon for the official opening of “Mixed Paint: New Work by 12 Contemporary Painters,” the museum's spring show.

The show focuses on artists who are working in contemporary non-representational styles such as expressionism and minimalism.

Stephanie Schuster, assistant director of the museum, said that every year, the museum chooses a different theme for its spring shows and in the past these have touched on a variety of media, all with the theme of displaying work by regional artists.

Schuster said that the show combines area artists from Syracuse, Skaneateles and Marcellus with artists working on the statewide level from Buffalo to New York City.

“Some have had their work here before,” Schuster said. “Some I found on the Internet or other suggestions, we tried to get a lot of diverse artists from a lot of different places.”

This year's show draws together artists not only from across the state, but from across a range of styles and points in their careers.

“I think that is one of the interesting things about the show,” Schuster said. “There are a lot of different styles and artists. Some are well established and have been featured in Art In America and others are just getting started out in their first year or so out of school. It is a really nice show that runs the gambit and makes for a really nice and balanced show.”

With works in the vein of artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem DeKooning, this year's show offers a creative display of modern art.

“It is focused on things that are a little more experimental,” Schuster said. “The main idea is the non-representational style, but to show the wide range of styles that represents.”

Among the artists on display is Chris McEvoy. An Auburn native, who now calls Brooklyn home, who has shown work at the Schweinfurth, with a show in 2003.

“I still have family in the area,” McEvoy said. “So it is nice to be able to come back home. It is a great opportunity to come back and visit with family and friends.”

With a series of paintings dealing with McEvoy's interpretation of what he called more organic subject matter, he said that he enjoys working in this more interpretive format that allows viewers to bring something of themselves and their own interpretations and feelings to the pieces they view.

“It isn't didactic in that way,” McEvoy said. “All my paintings here are variations on a theme. But it is interpretative. There are certain colors and shape arrangements and things like that that I can describe but it can be viewed different ways depending on who is looking at it.”

Attendees saw great variety in every piece on the walls of the museum, truly the point of the show, to allow them room to find their own feelings of the work

“It represented a number of different artistic styles,” said Elyssa Taylor, of Owasco. “I heard Melissa Johnson speaking with someone about her work and he said it reminded him of jazz. One of her pieces made me think of a pot of gold and daisies and bright sunshine. One of my favorite things about art is that each person can find their own personal interpretation of it, their own personal story for it.”

The show continues through April 19.