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It may be a question of who travels more, the painter or his paintings?

Local noted landscape artist Thomas Paquette's works will appear in two shows nearly a continent apart in January, one near the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado, and the other in the Catskills of New York.

Paquette, known for traveling across the country and abroad for inspiration for his work, plans to ship a collection of his oil paintings to Basalt, Colo., for a group show ("Winterscapes of the West") and to Windham, N.Y., for a solo exhibit next month.

He currently has seven of his miniature watercolors paintings known as gouaches at the Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt in a group show, "Small Wonders," which opened on Nov. 27 and runs to Dec. 31. His next appearance at Ann Korologos Jan. 28 through Feb. 14 for the "Winterscapes of the West" exhibit will include Paquette's oil paintings, some featuring Aspen landscapes, along with the works of four to six other artists.

Paquette's solo show in the Catskills at the Windham Fine Arts gallery is scheduled to open on Jan. 29 and run through March 1. It will feature a collection of his landscapes gathered from throughout his career.

"That one is really interesting to me," Paquette said. "My dealer (Windham curator Marie Christine Case) came out from the Catskills to see what I had here (in his Warren studio). I was going to augment the show with other things from other galleries. She found things from all over the place that she liked, from Yosemite, from France. She was looking at the work, itself, not that it had to be from a specific place."

Paquette said Case chose 20 paintings from his studio to be shipped to Windham for the exhibit.

"We had a great visit," Case said. "I was familiar with Tom's work. He's got a particular vision and a particular style. I like to go see the artists in person before an exhibit. You can see so much more than what's on paper that way.

"What I like about Tom's work is he represents nature, he represents the elements of skies, clouds, trees and fields. He includes his vision of the world. It's a residual effect in his painting. It elevates his work. It's all about the light."

Paquette, who was born and raised in Minnesota, has been painting full time since receiving a master of fine arts degree from Southern Illinois University in 1988. Following his graduate studies, he spent three years in Miami on a residency-fellowship awarded from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. He relocated his studio to Maine in 1991, where he stayed until 2001 when he relocated to Warren County.

Paquette's work has been the focus of more than 40 exhibits in galleries in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Maine, Minneapolis, Colorado, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., St. Louis and more. Dozens of his paintings have been selected to hang in 11 U.S. Embassies around the world. In addition, he has had paintings commissioned for the Federal Reserve Bank, Central Lakes College, the Minnesota state office building and the H.M.S. Queen Mary II.

Paquette resides in Warren with his wife, Ellen Putnam Paquette.