In many religions, life and death are considered a circle -- we are born, we die and we are reborn. After her father's death, Seahurst artist Marianne Perkins found herself instinctively drawn to the idea of working with circles.

"I wanted to do a piece about dancing, and then decided to use circles because they are so never-ending," Perkins said.

The resulting series of abstract paintings, "Dancing With The Moon," is on display at the Seahurst Art Gallery through Feb. 18.

While Perkins' choice of the circle as her focus may have been an emotional one, she is also an intellectual artist who thinks her concepts through and then plays with them.

"I wanted to see how I could work with circles and have them be different, like cutting and opening them," Perkins said. "My first idea was they were all going to be intersecting, then I started slicing and cutting them, putting dots in front of them."

Perkins' paintings are all done in acrylics, a tricky medium whose apparent limitations often lead to a certain clunky quality. A long and varied relationship with acrylics has, however, given Perkins a versatile fluency in that medium.

The artist switched from oils to acrylics when her son David at 2-1/2 years -- he is now 42 -- bumped his head into one of his mother's oil paintings, smearing the paint into his hair.

"I was terrified the turpentine to remove the paint was going to kill him, so instead I cut off his hair," Perkins said. "That's when I went out and got acrylics."

In Perkins' hands, acrylic paint can become as thin and translucent as a watercolor wash, allowing multiple underlying layers of color to peer through. At other times, Perkins will mix acrylics with white so they become dense blots of color that supersede everything beneath.

"Oils are also richer," Perkins noted, "which is something I work for."

And she succeeds, with vivid colors: sizzling oranges and reds and burning greens and aquas.

To get around the flat quality of acrylics so they better emulate the texture of oils, Perkins often first applies molding paste or gel medium, typically with a trowel, to the surface she will be painting.

This texture enriches and balances the brilliant orange of the morphing moons in "Dancing With The Moon," the painting for which Perkins' series is titled and one of this writer’s favorites.

Some of Perkins' paintings zing with motion. In "Jitterbug," the most kinetic of Perkins' paintings, moons skitter across a fiery sky, bumping into one another in a frenetic delirium. "Outside There Are Sirens," a line from a poem, has the feeling of a car wreck in progress, with its glowing yellow-orange moons split in half and red streaks splashed across a drying blood background in which a swirling black universe threatens.

In contrast, "Sweet Agnes Blue Martin" is almost Zen in its peacefulness as lines, horizontal and circular, firmly net the moons in place. Still, the lively blues and greens in this landscape are anything but placid.

"Pajama Party" with its pink striped circles represents the light-hearted side of Perkins' work, as does the circular piece titled "When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie."

Appropriately, Perkins included "I'll See Your Face in Every Flower," in the

exhibit. The painting, which is more representational than most of her work and not part of the circle series, emanates deep sorrow over the death of a beloved.

Created after her father died, the painting was inspired by his faithful habit of keeping carnations on the kitchen table following her mother's death: "Every week while she was alive, my father would bring home one or two carnations for my mother."

Perkins' work will be highlighted during an open house Saturday, Feb. 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., along with Billie Torbenson's cut paper and watercolor pieces and Rick Shanks' metal sculptures. Valentine's Day refreshments will be served.

The Seahurst Art Gallery is at 15210 10th Ave. S.W., Burien. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.