The local artist who can transport viewers into his paintings of limitless mangroves, waterways and skies of the Florida Keys is showing his new abstract artwork at the Hale Gallery at Mile Marker 81.8, bayside.

John David Hawver is known for his “mesmerizing landscapes,” according to Kelly Hale, co-owner of the gallery along with her husband Taylor, who is a full-time artist himself and who did a work-study program with Hawver while he was at Coral Shores High School. Among the lessons Taylor Hale learned from Hawver was how to stretch a canvas and “to always paint big.”