Having grown up in Chicago, artist Nick Paciorek has focused on cityscapes in much of his landscape work. So taking on a series of works capturing the mountains of Winter Olympic host venues might seem like quite a departure.

But Paciorek said he considers the effect of mountains to be somewhat similar to being surrounded by skyscrapers.

“You have these towers all around you — it just happens to be cliffs and jumps,” he said.

The ski trails are just another kind of city street scene, Paciorek added. Not to mention that the material to make the buildings in the city comes from the mountains.

Paciorek currently has a few pieces of his Whistler/Vancouver painting series on display at the Plaza Galleries in Whistler. The works feature various scenes of Vancouver, Whistler and the Callaghan Valley.

He’s captured the row of Canadian flags outside the Roundhouse on Whistler Mountain, the Village at dusk, and even the patio at Dusty’s with skiers in the background.

Paciorek said he was struck by the way the light plays against the mountains in Whistler, and how the Village impacts the mountains and sky. The Canadian flags at the top of the Village Gondola, “the top of the world,” were symbolic of the national pride in the Olympics and their history, he said.

“You really get a sense of pride of Canadians,” he said. “That was something that really struck me.”

After deciding in 2005 — the year before the Winter Games were staged in Torino, Italy — that he was going to continue painting Winter Olympic host cities, Paciorek spent about two weeks in Vancouver and Whistler last April. He said he spent time on the slopes, getting a feeling for the Olympic downhill run, in the Village and at Creekside. During the research phase for the series, he said he was constantly sketching and taking photos.

He also spent a time talking with people about their Whistler thoughts and experiences to help inform the eventual paintings, he said.

All the sketches, photos and experiences went back to Paciorek’s studio in Providence, R.I., where he captured on canvas what he found important in the Whistler landscape, he said.

It was during a 2002 trip to Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy that Paciorek said he came up with the idea to paint scenes of Torino before the 2006 Games. The concept came to him during an early morning stroll when he was struck by the “sense of landscape” and history there, he said. Paciorek plans to continue painting Winter Games host locations, he added.

Head to the Plaza Galleries on Main Street to experience Nick Paciorek’s impressions of Whistler in his new collection, or visit www.paciorek.com to view the entire Whistler/Vancouver series.