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Who would have thought paintings of produce could cause threats of a sexual harassment suit? Russian born artist Luba Sterlikova says it happened to her in 1998. Having lived in the U.S. for only a few years, she was thrilled to show her images of fruit and vegetables in a D.C. corporate office. But then a call from the firm's office manager stunned the painter. Apparently a handful of staff members were planning to file a suit against the company if said paintings weren't removed immediately.

Apparently, the sexual nature of the works so embarrassed some staff members, they were uncomfortable even walking down the hallway where the offending paintings were hanging. Of course, the Garrett Park artist took them down. "Everything in nature is male and female," she says, baffled by the reaction.

Sterlikova soon learned a little secret: In America, bad publicity can turn into good publicity. Suddenly her work carried panache, and patrons were clamoring to buy the paintings.

Since this auspicious beginning, Sterlikova's subject matter and reputation have expanded. Showing her art internationally and at the District's Foundry Gallery, the artist is now testing the suburban marketplace with an exhibit of oversized flowers at Gaithersburg's Kentlands Mansion.

Sure, pretty posies can be the ultimate cliché, but the mansion's gallery director Natalya Parris insists, "Luba [Sterlikova] does not merely paint flowers; she paints emotions and feelings in the form of flowers. The mood can be happiness, sadness, or being in love. Love is what she captures most of all in her paintings."

And if folks compare her to Georgia O'Keefe, Sterlikova proclaims, "I'd never heard of her when I started painting flowers 10 years ago."

The artist has a valid reason for once being unfamiliar with someone she now calls an "American icon." Growing up in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Moscow during the Soviet era, contemporary art was verboten. Instead, she spent hours visiting the Hermitage and other museums with her parents, absorbing the classics.

"I wanted to be one of the guards watching over the artwork. Then I wouldn't have to stand in line in the cold, waiting to come into the museum," she recalls.

Never mind guard duty, she earned a doctorate in political science. Some 17 years ago, she moved to the U.S. with her first husband. After he passed away, she picked up a paintbrush, hoping the action might help her heal. Without a formal art education on either continent, she became obsessed with relationships between shapes and colors of produce and flowers. Soon, she was picking up an extra pomegranate or a bunch of sunflowers at the market.

Her new homeland's sensibilities clearly influence the artist, who now takes a decidedly western approach to painting. Russian art tends to be "action oriented. I rarely saw still lifes," she observes.

She hastens to add her work isn't meant to be representational, which can be a problem in this literal world.

"I sold a large painting of a pear to a family who loved it," she says, but after hanging it in their kitchen and their friends insisting it wasn't a pear, they wanted to return it.

"You have to believe in yourself no matter what, especially when dealing with the public," she advises. And besides, after this exhibition at Kentlands, Sterlikova will present her contemporary still lifes at the Russian Embassy. She is pleased to note that contemporary art by Russian-born artists now is storming the former Soviet Union.

Luba Sterlikova's paintings are on view through Nov. 16 in the Kentlands Mansion, 320 Kent Square Road. For hours, call 301-258-6394 or visit www.gaithersburgmd.gov.