Go With the Flow : Susan Clover’s current work offers tranquil and sensual scenes of people in water, representative of the classic California lifestyle.

Fires, floods and earthquakes have not stopped Susan Clover of Seal Beach from painting scenes that convey the joys of living in Southern California.

Her latest series of 12 paintings at Orlando Gallery carry on a theme that has captivated her for more than 20 years: figures in delightful water environments.

“I love water, the way it splashes and sparkles, the way light plays on it. Water is a very sensual symbol,” Clover said. Being in water “is an experience that everyone has had, so I don’t feel like I’m painting something that isn’t understood.”

Using her sister, her son and daughter and their friends as models, Clover photographs them sunbathing, walking along the beach, lollygagging in the surf, dipping a foot into a secluded stream. With a color pallet that conveys the coolness of late-afternoon ocean breezes and the intensity of an atmosphere drenched in sunlight, she turns those photographs into richly textured, vibrant paintings of good-looking people in the most seductive of California environments.

“She has a luminosity to her work and an inner light that she creates through the use of color,” gallery director Bob Gino said. “It’s just not water per se; it’s what the water says to her. There’s where she creates the sensuality in the water.”

“The water reflects back into the skin,” Clover said. To re-create the effects of light and shadow on the body, she “uses more color in skin,” Gino said, than any other artist he knows.

Because of its translucence and color, a painting such as “Water and Light” seems almost three-dimensional to Gino. In this picture, two women float about. “She creates a roundness in the body--what the body is all about. It’s like you can go in and around them,” he said.

Clover strives to create “an environment you feel you can walk into. When you paint, you’re not painting some thing. You’re painting color and shape and direction.”

Clover works indoors but under light that duplicates sunlight. Using brushes, a pallet knife and her fingers for blending, she does strokes that are loose and free. Stand close to her paintings and they appear more like abstract compositions. Move back, and the bold, realist images emerge.

In “Wading at Jetty,” we see a man and woman from the back. She wears a bright print skirt in primary colors, but we can also see the shadow of her leg underneath the skirt. We seem to be following the couple as they pass the jetty rocks covered with a rich, green moss. The soft color of the sky and water indicates the sun is on its way down. “She transports you to tranquillity,” Gino said.

In “Water Reflections,” a young woman nonchalantly plays with her long, wet hair after a dip. The vividness of the image stirs memories of how content one can feel after an exhilarating swim. The attention to details, such as the numerous appealing rings on the woman’s fingers, enhances the personal nature of the picture.

Clover’s sister, artist Joyce Wisdom, is at the center of “Green Fern-Topanga.” Wearing a big sun hat and a sheer print skirt, she sits by a stream soaking up the lush surroundings. Clover prefers to paint people she knows “because I have an emotional response to the people I know. There’s detachment there if you don’t know” your subjects, she said.

She also enjoys depicting the intimacy of couples as in “Cozy,” where a man hugs a woman close. “It puts a sexual play between the two people. You introduce another factor,” she said.

Clover, a Los Angeles native, said she will continue to paint the people most dear to her living the California lifestyle she finds so compelling. “I see the beauty of what’s around me all the time,” she said.

Where and When

What: “Susan Clover: Paintings.”

Location: Orlando Gallery, 14553 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Ends April 29.

Call: (818) 789-6012.