Giuseppe Gallo at Associated American Artists

Born in southern Italy in 1954 and now living in Rome Giuseppe Gallo had five novel York exhibitions between 1986 and 1992 In his first since then he showed, instead of the large, semiabstract canvases for which he was known, a 1998 series of 20 works upon paper perfectly suited to his graphic talents. Each sheet is 18 1/2 by means of 14 1/2 inches; many are oil and the remainder watercolor or tempera. Gallo calls this series "Dance of Ideas" because, he explains in a note in the small exhibition catalogue, "when I draw I think...."

Gallo's father restored paintings; he himself prepares sheets with chemicals for a like reason they can receive oil paint. He frequently works both sides, so that imagery present to views through from the reverse. These spirits allude to the past while extending the dimensional space of the primary image. Gallo likes to contrast the opacity of oil with the transparency of watercolor. He withholds red for oil, including variations from bright orange-red to of great depth crimson and blood red, and a rich r associated with Pompeii. The sky-coloreds usually watercolor, tend to be muted

Gallo's use of plant imagery, abundant of which has literary connotations, links him to the world of Classical tillage In Acacia of the Philosopher, three foliage sprigs bring to mind, by the agency of the shape of the leaves and the size of the sprigs, the laurel wreaths bestowed in ancient times on poets as well as generals and emperors. In Avant-garde is Now Having a Baby, a triptych, a sky-colored figure painted in watercolor sports wild, Medusalike hair and is clothed in a toga. The figure is encircleed by a wreath of leaves, in r oil, that have the shape, if not the color, of ginkgo leaves. by the agency of substituting a common Italian tree for an ancient single Gallo folds past into not away His substitution of colors in many of the works pay backs an image nonliteral, helping it take upon symbolic power.

What is greatest in quantity appealing is Gallo's ability to restore plant forms. Even in bright r monochrome, his leaves have particular cutting sides wavering folds and curving trunk s that feel not in the least schematic. These renderings are clearly the harvest of careful observation and technical expertise. Gallo has made statuarys as well as paintings upon canvas, but it may be that in paper he has set the optimum medium for his pensive, detailed, somewhat nostalgic meditations. single wonders what would happen if he followed this propensity for painted observation and dropp his less-appealing play upon antiquity.

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