Mitchell-Reed Community of Learners hosted an artist talk called fluid dialog with the two artists with work currently in the Bernice Coulter Templeton Art Gallery Tuesday.

The two artists, Liz Trosper and Thomas Motley, have been in a collaborative dialog since 2013, Motley said. The exhibition features colorful paintings, drawings and digital artwork.

“There are some art projects that are collaborative where more than one artist will work together on a project,” Motley said. “This sort of just developed naturally from Liz and I critiquing each other’s work over the last four years now. There is a dialog going on between all of these pieces.”

Motley said the dialog started when he sent images of his work to Trosper and one drawing of a bird resonated with her.

“She did a collage, and then I responded with other collages,” he said.

Motley focuses more on drawings and paintings while Trosper does a combination of print, ink and paint. Trosper said she feels really vulnerable having this collection in a gallery because it is not the traditional gallery work she usually shows.

“It is a little more experimental, a little more personal,” Trosper said. “It is more immediate although there is a lot of digitally fabricated work. There are some traditionally painted images. There is a lot of varied, sort of previously hoarded in the studio, kinds of work.”

Trosper said she and Motley both came up with the idea of displaying the dialog in a gallery.

“It really is centered around our exchanges and sort of having the courage to put things out that are totally experimental and that have never been seen before,” she said.

Art professor Kit Hall said she does not understand the dialog, but she does appreciate the color, the scale of the work and the craftsmanship.

“It still leaves me confused and I think that is not a bad thing because when you are a little bit confused about the art, I appreciate the point that they made that it makes you want to come back and try to understand it,” Hall said. “As human beings, our natural inclination, I believe, in looking at art is to be able to tell a story about it. When we can’t tell a story about it like that, just immediately, then we do get confused.”

The exhibition, fluid dialog, will be on display in the gallery until March 1. There will be a reception 2-4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3. For more information and the full artist statements visit txwes.edu/art-gallery.