The Flower Press

Painted Flowers Hold Space for Summer Blooms

It’s still too early in northern Colorado to plant many of summer’s most popular and eye-catching annual flowers. The bold seasonal color that defines Old Town Fort Collins’ street corners each year is still weeks away. But in the meantime, the Lincoln Center Art Gallery is offering an alternative dose of floral therapy. The Bright Side, a new exhibit featuring Colorado artists Annie O’Brien Gonzales, Laura Merage, Tricia Soderberg, and Randy Steinke, opened May 1 and runs through June 12, with a free opening reception this Friday, May 8. 

Liz Good, the city’s visual arts coordinator, says the exhibit is a great opportunity to be surrounded by color. ‘It should be a little bit of a pick-me-up,’ Good said. “We try to pick art that is visually stimulating, exciting, happy and bright.”

The Bright Side brings together artists working across a range of styles — with much of the work rooted in floral themes and subjects. Interactive installation, abstract work, and portraiture are all united by a shared commitment to bold color and uplifting energy. The result is a collection designed to move viewers emotionally, offering an immersive experience centered on positivity and joy.

In addition to the gallery, Good’s office oversees the city’s Art in Public Places projects — including the city wall and transformer cabinet mural programs. Whether painted in vivid realism or sweeping abstraction, floral imagery runs throughout the city’s mural collection. The result is year-round botanical and nature-inspired color woven into the fabric of daily life across downtown Fort Collins.

That intersection of botanical imagery, public space, and community wellbeing is drawing growing attention from researchers. A 2025 study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that viewed flowers — whether real or painted — produce strong, measurable emotional responses, suggesting that a painted bloom may move us much the same way a real one does.

The Bright Side opening reception is this Friday, May 8, at the Lincoln Center Gallery, 417 W. Magnolia. Free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Wednesdays and Fridays, 1–6 pm. Information and maps for the downtown wall and transformer cabinet murals are available at www.fortcollins.gov/publicart.