LEWISTON – The featured artist for January at the Visiting Artists Gallery at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center is Dr. Ray Fannin Jr.

Fannin became interested in art when he was in kindergarten. He drew, painted and sketched throughout childhood, producing highly detailed, realistic drawings.

He planned an education in English literature, but his family encouraged him to make a more practical career decision. He attended medical school at the University of Florida College of Medicine and went on to specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry.

Fannin has continued painting throughout his adulthood as a self-taught artist. He gradually developed what he calls the syndetic abstraction style of art.

He said syndetic refers to the process of uniting and/or connecting, while abstraction refers to the use of forms and essences. He said, “My art, therefore, is concerned with the uniting and connecting of forms and essences.”

Ray and Mary Fannin live in the Lewiston/Auburn area where he practices child and adolescent psychiatry at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.

For information regarding exhibiting at St. Mary’s Visiting Artists Gallery, call Coordinator Vyonne Spaar at 784-5323.