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The Mansion at Strathmore has branched out this summer, first with Daniel Wurtzel's trippy silicone sculptures and now with a pair of painters who specialize in a medium the gallery does not often explore.

"We have done a lot of watercolors in the past, so we're looking to do more oils," says program manager Julie Bramon. "Both of these artists are very good. We're excited."

Starting this Saturday, art enthusiasts can check out "From Intimate to Monumental: The Works of John Francis Murray and Julio Salazar." Although both artists use the same medium, they differ greatly in style as well as subject. Murray paints subjects with broad, impressionist-like strokes, while Salazar depicts large-scale figures with cleaner lines and bright splashes of color.

"My method of work owes much to the American abstract expressionists, and also to the surrealists," Salazar says via e-mail. "Spontaneity is a source of creativity, and at the same time, an aesthetic statement about the process."

Born into a family of 15 children in Cartago, Valle, Columbia, the 52-year-old draws much of his influence from the art of native South American cultures before the arrival of European settlers. Some creations are quite vivid, but many of the paintings in his "Faces" series feature masks with neutral color palettes and abstract backgrounds.

"I look at the pre-Columbian aesthetic as a resource in the way it approaches the natural world, a combination of anthropomorphism and geometry," Salazar explains.

Other paintings riff on the old masters. Portraits of the Madonna and even a variation on the "Mona Lisa" fill out his body of work. However, Salazar insists that The Renaissance is not a major source of inspiration.

"I have used some of the faces of the European Renaissance to make a connection to the viewer," he says. "But aside from the humanity of those faces, which I tried to convey when I painted them, they are just part of a theme that is recurrent in my work."

Whatever his inspiration, Salazar completes his visions on a big scale. Finished canvases are sometimes seven feet long.

"Being confronted with such a large painting is so powerful," Bramon says. "It begs to be looked at for a long time."

While he attended the Art School of David Manzur in Bogot·, Salazar didn't become truly passionate about painting until he visited Paris in 1982.

"I discovered the thrill of the aesthetic experience while contemplating a masterpiece," he says. "It was there where I knew that the quest to understand and to create that aesthetic experience was the purpose of my life."

A lifelong bachelor, Salazar now calls Los Angeles home, but he has the tendency to keep moving.

"I never actually settle down," Salazar says. "The main reason is my curiosity for different cultures and people's diversity. I think my own childhood is partly responsible, because my family was huge."

Murray, however, has settled down. He lives in Silver Spring with his wife Lena, who also works in oils. She offers advice, too.

"My wife is Russian, and they are very to the point," Murray says. "She has a great eye, and she's an excellent critic. I sometimes will reject what she says to me, but generally I find that she's right."

As a teacher at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, Murray must maintain a critical state of mind as well. The 48-year-old is tougher on himself than on his students.

"I grabbed a few paintings for this Strathmore show, and I remember not loving them when I shipped them," he says. "But when I brought them back, they were better than I remembered. I'm hard on myself. I'm always thinking the next painting is going to be better. I think that's what keeps me excited."

Murray graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, studied in Italy and spent 16 years as a bank note designer with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. During that period, he concentrated mostly on drawing. After earning a grant from the Corcoran to study at the Repin Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, Murray began to paint much more. He is heavily influenced by Russian realist art, which is similar to impressionism. However, the work of more Western painters always has been at the tip of his brush.

"I grew up looking at very traditional and classical work, and those were my influences," he says. "I know that oil has the most versatility of any medium, so that's why I picked it."

Murray is always on the move, dipping his hand in various projects and business ventures. In 2006, Georgetown University commissioned him to create a series of religious paintings. The first, in which the Virgin Mary, Joseph and St. John the Baptist are watching over a holy man, presented a challenge. Murray usually works with small canvases.

"It was a little scary for me," he admits. "It's a fairly big painting. It was a difficult thing to work out compositionally."

The 60- by 80-inch piece turned out fine, but Murray isn't quite satisfied.

"I feel like I would have done things differently, but they like it, and that's the most important thing," he says.

Although he also co-owns a building restoration company, Murray spends much of his time in the classroom or in his studio. Landscapes, still lifes and figure work are all in his repertoire.

"I like all three because they all have their own challenges. I'm as interested in the abstraction of painting as I am the subject matter."

"From Intimate to Monumental: The Works of John Francis Murray and Julio Salazar" is on display from Saturday through Sept. 19 during regular gallery hours at the Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. A talk with both artists will take place on Sept. 12 at 1 p.m. Admission is free. Call 301-581-5109 or visit www.strathmore.org.