The six women whose works of art are currently displayed in the Parish Center for the Arts Gallery live just a short drive from Westford, in Lexington or Stow. Five of the women originally hail from much further, though.

Joyce Collier Fearnside is the only exhibitor born in the United States. Marika Barnett is from Hungary and is a Holocaust survivor. Sirarpi Heghinian Walzer earned her BFA from The Etage in Berlin, Germany. Young A. Shin studied fiber art at a girls school in Seoul, Korea. Gabriele Stewart met her American husband at art school in London, after growing up in Bern, Switzerland. Pao-Fei Yang attended the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. With such varied backgrounds, it should come as no surprise that the works exhibited, while all part of the same month-long PCA show, cover a range of styles and genres.

The exhibitors belong to the METRO-Lex Artists Network. Their group show, "Six Artists in Search of..." will be displayed at the PCA through Sept. 28. The public is invited to an opening reception for the exhibit on Sunday, Sept. 14 from noon to 3 p.m.

Stewart has studied art in France, Switzerland, Monaco, Canada and the United States, including with Gracia Dayton and the Dover Lane Artists of Belmont. At the PCA show, she exhibits bright, festive, red-, yellow-, green- and blue-toned modern paintings, including "Dragon," and "The Phoenix," all on acrylic. When she is painting, "I just have to listen to music or something like that; I love colors and music," Stewart said Sunday, explaining the inspiration for her work. A former fashion designer, her ballet costumes have been featured on Swiss television and her wallpaper designs and paintings have been exhibited at various venues in her homeland of Switzerland. Stewart was commissioned to design the "Flow Team Concept" for Credit Suisse Bank in Zurich. She has also won first prize in a Niagara University, New York art contest. Stewart's works have appeared in the Swissotel's Swiss Society annual group shows in Boston and at numerous venues around Lexington, including the Depot Square Gallery, Bel Canto, the Lexington Library, Follen Church and the Munroe Art Center. "I have a lot of shows at Starbucks in Lexington and with my group," she said.

Pao-Fei Yang won the best sculpture in show award at the "Form and Forces" juried exhibition for ceramics at Lexington's Parson Gallery. Her PCA exhibits include symmetrical ceramic tile wall pieces, block cut with neutral colored shapes, including a horse's silhouette. After earning her B.S. from the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Yang emigrated to the U.S. to study art at the University of Connecticut and met her spouse there. She has done demonstrations on the hand built and the glazing techniques to accompany a show of her works and has studied the Saggar Fire technique at the Radcliffe College Ceramics Studio. "For this technique, I feel I'm the first one to try it," Yang said Sunday of the Saggar, low fire ceramics production style. She has also studied ceramics, drawing, sculpture and painting at the DeCordova Museum School. Yang uses seaweed, sawdust and salt marsh hay in her creations. "Any natural thing is fine," she said. Her works have exhibited at the Kendall Art Gallery in Wellfleet, the DeCordova, the Newton Free Library, Lexington's Gallery on the Green and Radcliffe Hill Library, in addition to Howard Salon in Taipei and other galleries in Belmont, Lexington and Cambridge.

Barnett is the only exhibitor who does not live in Lexington. The Stow resident is exhibiting colorful, kaleidescope-like images in the PCA show. Barnett emigrated to the United States in 1956, escaping the communist regime in Hungary that was squashing citizens' freedoms, backed up by Soviet troops. She has studied, taught and worked in the art field in Europe, Hawaii and the mainland United States. Recently, she has exhibited in Baltimore, New York City, Long Island and around the Boston area. Barnett's works appear regularly as part of the "Distinguished Artists'' group show at the Concord Art Center and have also graced the Boston Artchitectural Center catalogue cover and the pages of a prominent Hungarian political/cultural periodical, the '"Beszelo."

Collier Fearnside has a studio at the Munroe Center for the Arts and works in Collagraph, drypoint, lonocut, serigraphy, monotype, monoprint and woodcut. Her paintings of trees and foliage in muted tri-chromatic tones are included in the PCA display. She holds a BFA from Colorado Women's College in Denver and an M Ed from the Lesley College Graduate School Arts Institute. Collier Fearnside has studied at the DeCordova Museum School and won numerous awards for her work, including the Cambridge Art Association's Juror's Award, the Concord Art Association's Medal of Honor and a 2nd place award for her entry to Lowell's Whistler House Museum's "Inspired by Lowell" juried show. Other venues where Collier Fearnside's work has been displayed include the Massachusetts State House, Newport Art Museum, the Arnold Arboretum, the DeCordova Museum and Symphony Hall in Boston.

Heghinian Walzer is a native of Berlin, Germany with a background in set and theater design. Her PCA works incude colorful human form sketches mixed with cut outs and one photograph of a female subject. Before she studied art, she earned a BS in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering and an MS in Systems Engineering from Boston University. Her works have been exhibited in numerous venues throughout Europe and the United States, including a dozen German galleries, The State House, The Mystic Art Association's Liebig Gallery, the Boston International Fine Art Show and the Kathryn Schultz Gallery in Cambridge, where she won the "Sound Show" jurors choice award.

Shin has a studio at the Munroe Center. Her works in the PCA exhibit include 'Facing Home,' a colorful painting surrounding a human figure in the center. She earned her BA and MA degrees and won a national collegiate art award in her native Korea before emigrating to the United States. She has won the juror's choice award at a juried exhibition at the Whistler House Museum of Art and has also showcased her work at the GANA Gallery in Seoul, the Concord Art Association Gallery, The State House, The Decordova Museum Gallery and numerous other venues in Manchester, NH, Lincoln, Lexington, Belmont, Jamaica Plain and Newton.