Look at the person sitting next to you. Closer. Look into his eyes. What do you see? A pupil, probably dilated from the light. An iris, flecked with infinite bits of color. If you look deep enough, you may even see his soul. But if you change focus, you’ll see a reflection — a tiny version of yourself in his eyes.

Window and mirror. Iris and pupil. Other and self. What you see in someone’s eyes depends on your focus. The same could be said for Paul Plante’s oil pastels — thousands of individual birds’ eyes, close-up, in brilliant color.

What looks like the eye of an Eastern bluebird to an ornithologist could be a full moon hovering in a night sky and surrounded by a dreamlike whorl of color. It could be an abstract design study or a reflection of the viewer’s own focus and connection to the natural world.

“It’s always interesting because I think he appeals to so many different people on so many different levels,” said Cynthia Hyde of Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, where Plante has shown his work since 1998. “For the most part, people really respond to the color and the otherworldness of them.”

Plante, a Roman Catholic priest in Winslow, infuses the works with a complex spirituality. The paintings aren’t outwardly religious, but for eight years he has continued to find deep meaning in a single aspect of a single creature.

“To me that focus also has a spiritual side to it — always seeing more and more and more in one thing,” Plante said. “That is part of that intuitive side to art that’s intangible. It’s linked to human mystery.”

Eight years of eyes seems like a lot, but before that he painted only plums. From one fruit, he extracted luscious curves and sparkling colors — bruiselike blues and shiny pinks emerged from plain purple plums. By focusing on a tiny part of the fruit, he drew out supple contours and nuances of shading — a nick in the skin or the dark, hard indent of the stem. All from a humble plum.

“The strange thing is that with the development of my work as an artist I have stayed a very long time with a subject,” Plante said. “Even in a very limited focus, there is unlimited possibility. … It gives you some depth to put a contemplative gaze on something time and again.”

For Plante, art is contemplative and meditative. He works silently in his studio, upstairs in the parish house at St. John the Baptist Church. Every day, without fail, he sets aside time alone to paint — often in between appointments or after the last service of the day.

“Art is something that is part of my daily routine. Along with prayer and ministry, it is part of my life,” Plante said. “I kind of like to have these different aspects of life. If you don’t waste time, you have time for these things.”

He squeezes in painting whenever he can — a half-hour here, 45 minutes there, but he’s prolific. Every day he completes several pieces — each 4 1/2 inches square, each of a bird’s eye, though the bird may vary. When they are finished, they join hundreds of other bird paintings in stacks of black and gray museum boxes that line one wall of the studio. On the other side of the room, a stack of birding magazines and books offers him hundreds of photographs to work from. But he doesn’t copy the pictures — he takes the basic idea and zooms in on the eye area, its shading and patterns and the depth within.

“No matter what he works from, the piece just becomes so much more,” Hyde said.

The paintings capture something your eyes can’t — a living bird, perfectly still, up close. Plante takes bird-watching to a different level, personal and intimate. In nature, you can’t just sit down next to a bird and look into its eyes. Through Plante’s paintings, you can.

“I have always been fascinated by the fleeting beauty of birds because it seems they’re always perched on bushes, ready to fly away,” Plante said.

Alone, the birds’ eyes are intense. Framed together in a series, they’re almost unnerving. Hyde said a few people who come into her gallery can’t look at the multiples — too many eyes looking back at them. But Plante says the groups of eyes are closer to what we really see.

“I think that’s sort of how we look at birds — in flocks,” he said. “When we describe a bird, we describe a species, not an individual.”

Together or alone, Plante’s paintings have captured the attention of bird-watchers and art lovers alike. A couple visiting Maine saw Plante’s paintings at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. The husband, a bird-watcher, was drawn in by the eyes, trying to identify the species. The wife, an artist, was struck by the abstract harmony of his work. The two invited him to Mississippi to visit, and he ended up showing a collection of birds native and transient to the area in an exhibit at the George E. Ohr Arts and Cultural Center in Biloxi.

Closer to home, he has work on display at several Maine galleries. A show of Plante’s pastels just wrapped up at College of the Atlantic, another is planned at the L.C. Bates Museum of Natural History in Hinckley. Next year, Colby College will show his work.

“He’s very modest, but he’s really captured something with his work, and it’s spreading,” said Carl Little, director of public affairs at COA.

For people who buy Plante’s paintings, the draw comes back to the mirror and the window — reflection and introspection.

“I liked the idea of the eye. It was so focused,” said Barbara Merritt of Blue Hill, who bought one of Plante’s birds’ eyes for her 14-year-old son. She wanted something unique that would encourage her son to look inside and follow his dreams.

The price, $60 for unframed paintings, allows people to buy Plante’s work as a gift. For many, it’s the first time they’ve bought an original piece of artwork.

“They’re so beautiful and yet they’re so reasonable,” Merritt said.

Plante isn’t trying to earn a living with his art, and the price reflects that. He uses some of the money he earns for materials and framing. He uses the rest to buy paintings and sculptures by other artists at the galleries.

“I surround myself with art instead of with money,” he said. “I think I come out the lucky one there.”

While priesthood was his calling, art has been a part of Plante’s life since he was a boy, growing up in Sanford. He studied art while at seminary in Canada. But it wasn’t until 1983 that he decided to go to Portland School of Art, now Maine College of Art. He didn’t take any time off from his ministry and he earned his bachelor’s of fine art in four years. There he had the chance to expand and refine his skills.

“To do good art, you need to be a good technician. You don’t just throw paint up there,” Plante said. “That’s something you learn. It’s not just natural.”

But the other side, the spiritual side, is more intuitive. Looking into a bird’s eye, Plante sees color and design, but he also sees a connection to nature, to himself, to the universe.

“Art is the creation of a whole new means of communication,” Plante said. “When people catch that sense of what’s being said, they’re communicating at a level that’s very mysterious and deep.”

The Rev. Paul Plante’s work is carried by the Clark House Gallery in Bangor, Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, O’Farrell Gallery in Brunswick and Firehouse Gallery in Damariscotta.