Boston.com May 14, 2004

A&E / Theater/Arts

Finding fascination in blots, splats, bubbles, and shimmer

by Cate McQuaid, Globe Correspondent

GALLERIES

Jazzy `Supersplat'

The blot is only a stone's throw from the splat -- quite literally in the

Harrison Avenue gallery complex, as just down the hall from Reid's show

you can see New York painter Carolanna Parlato's show, "Supersplat," at

O^.H+T Gallery. It's a jazzy, lighthearted exhibit that showcases Parlato's

technical prowess and her fascination with pictorial depth.

In some pieces, the artist trowels on a white, frosting-thick ground, then

presses pigment into it. "Supersplat III" sports a wispy funnel of

robin's-egg blue. Parlato covers this with sheer, glossy yellow-toned

washes, over which she pastes what she calls "stickers," which are poured,

dried, multicolored swirls of acrylic paint. She's working with colors

that rise to meet you; the blue ground pops up off the surface, but the

stickers pop even more.

The hallucinogenic-looking stickers take on an almost narrative quality in

their interactions. "Space Rainbow VI" features a flat, gray ground and

passages of paint poured directly onto the canvas, including a small,

humped mountain of dark gray veined with green and pink, which rises from

the bottom. Parlato appends a sticker to the mountain's peak, and the form

takes on the quality of a hunched old man; stickers floating over his head

might be dark clouds or thought bubbles. It's a strangely brooding image

for the peppy tones and whirligig gestures this artist offers up -- but

that makes it all the more interesting.