ROCK SPRINGS — Green River High School art teacher Shane Steiss will have his artwork on exhibit at the Community Fine Arts Center in Rock Springs, with an opening reception set Friday from 4-6 p.m.

Steiss’s work centers largely on aspen trees, along with wildlife such as bison and deer, and occasional sunsets. He said the aspens connect him to his father, who died five years ago.

“My dad passed away about five years ago, and he was a big-time outdoorsman,” Steiss said. “I spent a lot of time with him hunting and exploring the wilderness, so the trees just kind of always remind me of all the good times we had together.”

Steiss returned to painting wildlife about two years ago after a trip to Yellowstone National Park, where he said he fell in love with painting bison. His newest pieces, completed in the past few weeks, came out of a camping trip to the southern Wind River Range.

His work spans oil paintings, watercolors and mixed media, often incorporating collage elements such as waxed fabric scraps from his mother-in-law’s quilting supplies, gel pen linework layered over watercolor, and gold leaf. He also collages with maps, which he uses to reference places and, as he put it, act as “containers of memories.”

Steiss said his artistic influences include Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee and Gustav Klimt, citing their use of squares and geometric composition, along with Klimt’s use of gold leaf, as recurring inspirations in his own work.

The exhibit will be on display at the CFAC through July 25.