A window seat, discerning eye and digital camera turned into a five-year project for Amy Oliver culminating in “Terrestrial,” her solo exhibition March 26-April 20 at Buenaventura Art Association’s downtown Ventura gallery.

Landscape and documentary photography are Oliver’s passions and she said this grouping represents 32 airliner trips over the years to visit friends and family members. She will have two-dozen works in the show, all 12-inch-square images printed on watercolor paper using archival pigments (framed to 18 inches square).

“I decided to print this size because I want the viewer to come close to each piece to have a more intimate experience with the work,” said Oliver, whose other aerial series include clouds and skies, titled Gray and Blue. Examples can be found at www.amyoliver.net.

An opening reception is planned 4-7 p.m. March 30, at which she promises “some delicious beer” brewed especially for the occasion by husband Jared Bishop, “a wonderful home brewer.” Oliver also plans to talk about her work from 7-8 p.m. April 5 during the First Friday Gallery Crawl, which runs from 5-8 p.m. A print of her work will be raffled off that night with name drawing at 7:45p.m.

The Ventura photographer and photography teacher got her start in North Carolina, she said, enrolling with her mother in a North Carolina community college class during a summer break from high school in 1996. “I can see elements of my work from that very first class that continue today,” she said. Oliver earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography in 2007 at California Institute for the Arts and has taught the subject at community colleges in Pasadena, Los Angeles and Ventura.

Major art influences include legendary lensmen William Eggleston, Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson and other image makers, including 18th-century Japanese printmaker Hokousai and American painters Wayne Thiebaud and Mark Rothko. “My friends, colleagues and students also inspire me all the time,” she added.

“Photographs are always specific … taken at a particular place at a particular time of a particular subject. When we see photographs, we expect to know these details,” Oliver said. “I believe these details can take us out of our experience with the image itself. I wondered, how could I make a photograph feel like a Mark Rothko painting?

“To do this, I work to create photographs that are timeless and placeless so the mind can wander, open up and experience the image. I aim to inspire wonder in my audience as well as a sense of peace and a quietness of mind,” she said. “The airplane proved to be the perfect place to create these sorts of images.”

“Terrestrial” will showcase those peaceful images at the Buenaventura Gallery, 700 E. Santa Clara St., which is open noon-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, visit the nonprofit BAA’s website at www.buenaventuragallery.org.