Chicago may have lost the 2016 Olympics bid, but it's no less an international city in the eyes of Joy Appenzeller Bauer.

Lately, the 38-year-old artist who specializes in urban landscapes has had to watch the city that inspires her from a distance. Bauer lived in Skokie until she recently moved to Crystal Lake with her husband.

Bauer, who was trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, said she mixes impressionism with urban realism. You can see predominantely the latter this month on the second floor of the Orland Park Public Library.

Patch talked with Bauer, an internet marketing consultant, earlier this week to discuss the city she admires, the importance of an unusual view, and the one cemetery every American should visit.

Your style has been described as Impressionism meets Urban Realism. Is this accurate and what does it mean?

What I do is a pretty traditional style. Depending on what type of scene I'm doing I tend towards more realism or more impressionism. Generally speaking, my cityscapes are more done in the realism style, which means I'm going to include more people who might actually—for example—be standing around waiting for the train. I'm not painting people who are, say, posing for a portrait. They're just doing their ordinary activities, like shopping, going about their business. And then the paintings tend to be really realistic, as well as the rendering style.

It's all in oil and takes me up to two months to complete, depending how many windows are involved. Architecture tends to take much longer than a landscape. I also paint en plien air, a French term meaning, 'on site.' And what I'll do there is actually take my easel and sit outside on location and paint scenery.

I do have a number of those in my collection. However, at the library, their sign is actually misleading. At the library I'm only exhibiting my Chicago and Washington, D.C. cityscapes. Those are all in the realism genre. They only have so much wall space and I'm such a prolific artist, so there's a lot more on my website.

When you think of your work hanging at the library, do any interesting stories come to mind?

I've lived in Chicago since 1985, pretty much. What I try to do is capture the spirit of Chicagoans, and celebrate architecture. Chicago is known for having outstanding architecture. It's just such a beautiful city and I like to capture the diversity of the different neighborhoods. You'll see I have some from Hyde Park. I've got some from Bucktown, Lincoln Park, the Loop. I try to cover as many different aspects as possible of the city, so sometimes I include the classic beauty shots, like North Avenue Beach, but I also sometimes paint an ordinary CTA scene.

Any parts of the city you prefer?

I like to paint unusual angles. You'll see when you look at the work. You can get an idea that I don't paint from the same perspective as everyone else. I try to look for an unusual view, but it feels very much like if you're a citizen of Chicago you would recognize it. For instance, I have the Billy Goat Tavern. That's something if you're from out of town you wouldn't necessarily know about. You wouldn't think, 'Oh, that's an interesting thing to paint,' but for those of us who are from Chicago it has a lot of memory and history associated with it, so that's what I try to do.

So is your art accessible to suburbanites?

Oh, sure. There are some paintings that include the Sears Town or Buckingham Fountain or other landmarks. My Washington, D.C. collection is very pro-military and honoring our veterans. There's a very large painting called 'The Guard of the Unknown Soldier.' That one's very personal for me because it's actually a huge grave stone and I've kind of included on there a montage of different wars with different soldiers fighting in combat.

And then (on) the side, I've actually engraved my two grandfathers' (names)—one is...still alive (at 92). They both served in World War II (and one was a recipient) of the Bronze star. I also mentioned my father-in-law, who also fought in World War II. I think it's a very fascinating subject, our veterans and everything they've done for our country. You'll see a few paintings (at the library) that have to do with Arlington National Cemetery.

Who would you compare your work to and which artists inspire you?

Sure, a lot of people compare me to Edward Hopper.... His most famous work is called ('Nighthawks,' which is a part of Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection). As far as painting style, my hero, I guess, is John Singer Sargent.

Does your art make a statement?

These two collections are fairly straight forward, with their locations. As I already gave you some spiel on the veterans, I would like to see veterans receive all the honor and respect due them. Whenever there's a mention of...cuts for veterans' benefits, I'm not happy about that. I liked to see every U.S. citizen make it a point to visit Arlington National Cemetery at one point in their life if they can.

As far as Chicago, if you look at my whole collection I guess it's almost like a tourism statement. It's kind of glorifying the diversity and the beauty of the city.

Is Chicago an international city?

Absolutely. And I've traveled around the world. I have another collection—it's my international collection—I just couldn't fit everything there (at the library), like I said. I've been to Tokyo, Brussels, London, Paris, you name it, and I think Chicago is easily one of the most attractive cities in the world. And what I like about it is there's so many smart people that have all these various experiences, not to mention our restaurants, our culture. You know, we have the opera, we have plays, we have the symphony. We've got all of these things right here. I think a lot of Midwesterners don't take advantage of the close proximity to this wonderful city as much as they should.

(Contact Bauer at joy@artdejoie.com, or visit her website to purchase prints ranging from $35 to $960. Original paintings hanging in the library cost between $550 and $5,000.)