An artistic sensibility dominates the home of Paul Kellogg, director of the New York City Opera. The walls of his Midtown West apartment are painted in various shades of muted brownishgray, and a visitor to the apartment quickly understands why: the neutral color enhances the more than 20 paintings by Raymond Han. The artist, who also happens to live here, has worked mainly in a palette of gray and beige for three decades.

“The apartment got to be the color it is by the palette Raymond paints in,” Mr. Kellogg said.

While the backgrounds of Mr. Han’s oil paintings are shades of gray — from white-gray to blue-gray — the subjects or objects are also painted in muted black, white, or gray. Slight touches of blue or red emerge in the paintings. When asked why he has a preference for subdued colors, Mr. Han simply said, “It’s within my personality.”

The subtle palette gives the portraits and still lifes a look of subdued serenity. Two of Mr. Kellogg’s favorite paintings are still lifes that dominate the living room. One of them, “Still Life With Casablanca Lily” (1997), includes one flower in a white vase set between a glass bowl and a white box; it strongly reflects the personality of the artist. “It has a great deal to do with what Raymond aspires to in his personal life: serenity and order and awareness of beauty,” Mr. Kellogg said. “Raymond has a profound sense of texture in his work.”

Mr. Han, who was born and raised in Hawaii, has been painting since childhood. While in New York, he works in a studio near the apartment. Mr. Han has shows every two years in New York and occasionally in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions at the Forum Gallery at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. In a recent show, Mr. Han seemed to be emerging from his subdued color palette. Pockets of reds and blues are now more common in his work. “His latest paintings have intense color fields with objects with saturated color,” Mr. Kellogg said.”They are still in the context of muted colors though, which makes them quite striking.”

For Mr. Kellogg, the still lifes have particular grativas. In one painting, Mr. Kellogg pointed out a black plastic pipe that goes up the middle of the painting. “In most cases the pipe would break the painting in two, but the composition remains intact and what the pipe does is add a kind of energy to the painting,” Mr. Kellogg said.

Although still life might not be the most popular style of painting today, Mr. Kellogg finds such work fascinating. “Raymond has a way of finding in inanimate objects a kind of vitality,” Mr. Kellogg said. “The serenity in the paintings is belied by the meticulousness of the paintings, and the effort that goes into this is a metaphor for how we need to live our lives,” Mr. Kellogg said.

If there’s a connection between Mr. Han’s work in paint and Mr. Kellogg’s work in opera — he has also served as artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera — it’s in the common goal in all artists’ lives. “The exploration of the human spirit in every form has always seemed to be the most important thing to me,” Mr. Kellogg said.