"Just be bold."

If you go Ching Levy will exhibit more than 65 paintings that range from floating ink works to watercolors - all influenced by the Chinese brush stroke style - at Savannah State University's Asa Gordon Library beginning with a public reception from 2-4 p.m. Nov. 18. The work will hang through Dec. 20 and may be viewed Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday, and Sunday 2-6 p.m.

That's Ching Levy so succinctly defining how she achieves the fluid strokes and organic shapes in her paintings.

She has mastered the understatement.

But to tell Levy's story is far from a succinct process. She began painting very traditional scenes barely four years ago and has established herself as an artistic force with which to be reckoned. She quickly moved to capitalize on her intuitive brushstrokes, the result of years of calligraphy training, and has excelled at giving a distinctive Asian look to her work.

The catalyst for her entry into art was serendipitous.

Levy had taken her daughter to art class and borrowed a pen and sketch pad from the instructor to pass the time. When class ended, the teacher looked at Levy's work and declared she had a photographic eye.

She continued sketching with her daughter and quickly took up a painter's brush. Her first painting, a scene from the Whitemarsh Island home Levy shares with her husband, Arthur, graces a dark hallway in the couple's house.

"I don't have a light on it, here, you'll see why," Arthur says, padding down a hallway. From a few feet away, the scene begins to glow - a morning dawning warm behind native tall pines. Arthur is right - well lit, the painting would depend upon its foreground. In the near darkness, it nearly mimics what Levy saw as she painted from the kitchen table.

A former insurance saleswoman in Taiwan, Levy also holds an MBA. She's business savvy but not at the expense of her work - images that are inspired by the view from her studio onto lush gardens filled with seed-munching birds and fluttering butterflies. Large windows surround the work area. A 200-year-old petrified tree trunk supports a huge exposed beam that spans the airy studio's soaring ceiling.

While many patrons of area art shows are familiar with Levy's watercolors - painstakingly executed on rice paper or silk - they likely have not seen new work influenced by a trip to her native Taiwan.

There, Levy spent time with an 80-year-old master painter and returned to America energized by his loose style and creative approach. For Levy, the flowers and birds and cats she so often painted in minute detail are now being executed in just a few brush strokes.

A series in the works - shrimp and crabs - are almost calligraphic in simplicity yet, still without color, convey whimsy and movement - and exemplify Levy's eye for design.

Her more detailed works are deceptive. Central objects - a bird or a cat - are detailed down to pin feathers or whisker hairs. Levy transitions color and clarity into backgrounds that blur and give an illusion of great depth and dimension. The technique's eye-fooling appearance is rarely seen in work of American artists and adds to the exotic appearance of a Levy original.

Delicacy also has its place. A light hand lays down watercolor that is gradient in its transparency. Background colors and silken texture combine to provide depth unlike the affects rendered by traditional cold pressed watercolor paper. The resulting images, particularly her blooming flowers and delicate butterfly wings, are fragile looking - as delicate as the real thing just a few feet away in her garden.

"I always admired people who could paint," Levy said.

Now, it's Levy who deserves the admiration.