'Postive and negative shapes'

Frank Capezzera, "Seated Woman (Green)" (mixed media on hardboard), by Frank Capezzera, his show “Form and Field: Humans and Gods in the Moment,’’ at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, July 3-28.

He tells the gallery:

"The depiction of the human and superhuman predates recorded written history, as found in cave wall paintings, rock face petroglyphs and talismans. It is human to be self-aware. It is human to conceive of gods.

This exhibit of acrylics/mixed media paintings represents a summing up of my recent exploration of figurative work.

My aim has been to treat the rendering of the field, or background in which the subject is found, with emphasis equal to that given the subject itself. I begin with preliminary line drawings and mark making, and, through addition, subtraction, deconstruction and reconstruction, search for suggestive images that are ambiguous, perhaps even unreliable in their narratives.

I work from live models, photographs and imagination. I am attracted, both, to figures in action and those in repose. I seek out positive and negative shapes as I compose the image. Some pieces allude to classical artistic forms, such as statuary of gods and goddesses and heroic figures, and others are derived from comic book figures.

My creative process is taken up with the search for solutions to the problems I, myself, create with each succeeding mark or application of pigment, including the decision of when the painting is finished."