“Mystical Unfolding” oil on canvas, 48” x 36”, Carole Milton.

Over decades as life partners and art colleagues, Ventura artists Carole Milton and Gerd Koch have exhibited their works widely, but never at the same place and time.

That situation will be rectified soon with the Feb. 28 debut of “Gerd Koch and Carole Milton: Together,” a joint show at the Buenaventura Gallery through March 24. An opening reception is planned from 4-7 p.m. on Saturday, March 3.

Koch and Milton each paint brilliantly colorful abstract visions, primarily in oil on canvas and often large, though their subjects and processes diverge widely. They will exhibit some recent works and some picked from their pasts in this show. It’s planned as sort of a grace note in their harmonious partnership, in celebration of love, art and their shared history. Longtime Ventura College art teacher Koch, who was a founding member of the nonprofit Ventura artists’ group (as well as many other local arts organizations), says the gallery’s intimate surroundings fit the “Together” theme well.

World travel, art creation and art appreciation are central to their life together, which they describe as a shared process of growth and experimentation. Milton and Koch met in the 1970s at Ventura College when she, a returning student pursuing educational interests after having raised a son and daughter, took his painting class. Koch also conducted European art tours; Milton first went in 1976 as a student and has returned with him many times over the years since as a guide.

They love to peruse galleries and museums together, attend most area art shows and exhibits, and strongly promote local art and artists. Last year in conjunction with the Ventura County Arts Council, the couple inaugurated a grant program for professional artists with two $3,000 awards in December.

Launching and guiding young artists has been Koch’s life work. Born in 1929 in Detroit, he came West after earning his bachelor’s degree in fine art at Wayne State University in 1951, founded an artists’ commune in the Upper Ojai Valley the next year, and began his long teaching career a year after that. He was a professor of painting and drawing at Ventura College in 1960-61, then taught adult school classes for a few years as he honed his knowledge of art history and techniques. After earning his MFA in postgraduate work at UCSB in 1967, Koch returned to the Ventura professorship, which lasted until his 1999 retirement. There he helped to mentor the careers of generations of prominent local artists.

His 60-year career as an artist has included solo and group shows in prestigious venues near and far, a long list of awards and honors, and purchases by many museums, public and private organizations and collectors. Koch also has been a member of the National Watercolor Society since 1955, serving three times as elected juror of its annual international exhibition.

Locally, his creative imprint is on such local arts groups as Studio Channel Islands Art Center, of which is he co-founder and a board member, and Focus on the Masters, on whose board he also serves. Koch has curated dozens of exhibitions over the years at SCIAC, the Ojai Art Center and Ventura College.

Carole Milton was born in Seattle and grew up in Yakima, Wash. She attended the University of Washington for a year before taking a secretarial job at an airline, where travel opportunities ignited and enflamed her lifelong love of antiquities and art.

Her painting career began later, after motherhood, with the Ventura College art classes. With Koch’s encouragement, Milton continued her studies at UCSB, from which she earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art in 1981. Her solo exhibition that same year at the university was the first in a long and growing list.

Milton, who calls herself an expressionist and a colorist, says she engages in “a visual dialogue as my paintings evolve.”

She begins the abstract works by chance, splashing diluted oil paints on the canvas outside her studio at their hilltop Ventura home. Once back inside, Milton experiments, often by spraying water over the pale colors, then pursuing those promising paths that emerge with more vivid hues from her palette, applied with brushes or even paper towels.

Examples of both noted local artists’ powerful visual imaginings will be exhibited in this unique show at the Buenaventura Gallery, 700 E. Santa Clara St. in downtown Ventura. Hours are noon-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For more about the show or the Buenaventura Art Association, call the gallery at 648-1235 or visit http://www.buenaventuragallery.org.