The Walls Talk

Some of Steve DiGiovanni’s Bedroom Paintings, now exhibiting at Westville’s DaSilva Gallery, suggest strong sexual content, with brief nudity, as movie rating disclaimers sometimes advise.

The sexiest aspect of DiGiovanni’s figurative imagery however, may not be the bodies of subjects swathed in fabric and drapery, or of those assuming various sexually charged positions, but the draped fabric itself and other props that DiGiovanni renders with modeling brilliance.

Completed over the last 30 months, DiGiovanni’s thematically cohesive oil-painting tableaus are set in his austere bedroom, a stage that facilitates opened-ended painted narratives ranging from sexual role-playing to shades of sadomasochism. The burka-like covering of one of the partners in several scenes bespeaks a kind of sexual dominance that is visited to varying degrees in much of this painting series.

A playful bondage is suggested with a string of animated Christmas lights that coil and intertwine around figures a, setting off charges of luminosity; a foil for the artist’s musings on lighting effects that regulate mood and provide visual interplay of light and form.

“Cap Sensitive” a haunting image of a half-naked, kneeling figure wearing a ​“dunce cap,” conjures imagery from incidents of humiliation and torture visited on prisoners of Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad. A flock of birds circle about the dunce cap, some in free fall, while a hummingbird curiously gazes into the cave-like opening of a shirt that has been pulled over the subject’s head. Tonalities created through layers of glazing lend a Goya-esque somberness to the painting as does the use of the pointed cap, a theme which is also represented in several paintings of martyrs of the Spanish inquisition by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Spanish master.

Viewers can draw their own conclusions about the meaning and synthesis of an industrial landscape of tower-like phallic projections and interconnected structures fused with the multiple images of a lovemaking couple, but ​“Industrial” leaves no doubt as to the artist’s draftsmanship and capacity to render elegant complexity. DiGiovanni said that the painting was the result of seeking resolution of the figures, a problematic composition that he was about to remove from the stretchers before deciding to include the industrial imagery, a familiar subject of past exploration.

This is an exhibit that, while not for everyone, will have appeal for those that appreciate painting virtuosity, and imagery that leaves room for the imagination and inspired debate. The show runs through Tuesday, but post-exhibit viewing can be arranged through the gallery.

Even as the DiGiovanni exhibit prepares to close, another gallery, Wall 12 Gallery at the beginning of Fountain Street in Westville, has rolled out its new exhibit, a billboard-sized graphic painting by Eric Epstein and project assistant Alyson Fox.

This is the third exhibit for the outdoor gallery which unveiled its first display last March, a graphic banner by Tony Kosloski, followed by an interactive mural painted by some eighty participants in May, for Westville’s Artwalk 17 Festival.

Epstein and Fox have collaborated on a number of community projects including IMap New Haven, which received a Mayor’s Community Grant Program Award last year. The project invited the public to illustrate their thoughts, memories, favorite places, and geographic points of interest on a simplified New Haven map http://imapnewhaven.com/ template, many of which were displayed at an exhibit at Artspace.

The new 24-foot painting, in a place of commanding visibility, is a bold, hard-edged, abstract work of overlapping diagonal lines that create dynamic intersections, framing geometric shapes in the white and lime green color fields. Dividing a positive-negative flip of colors is an image-long band of bright orange with a narrowing tension point just off center.

The image’s clean lines were created with tape, with layers of color applied before and after the tape’s application. Epstein, who is a practicing architect, did detailed sketches and used various graphics and a painting by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein for inspiration.

The overall ​“Pick Up Sticks” vibe of this painting is strongly architectural, with an interesting spatial dimension suggesting traditional landscape elements of earth, sky and horizon line.

Asked whether there were any concerns in creating such a large painting, Epstein’s response was unambiguous: ​“I have no qualms about making a graphic that size. Architecture is bigger, heavier, and hangs around much longer. And it’s much more expensive to change architecture if you don’t like it. This piece can be gone in a few minutes. Much less at stake. No fear.”