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‘Late Afternoons’ local art show set for Friday

CHEYENNE HARTY
The St. Croix Avis
Thursday, June 27, 2002

“Late Afternoons,” local artist Luca Gasperi’s exhibition of new works, will debut Friday at the Walsh Metal Works Gallery in Peter’s Rest.

Gasperi said the exhibit is his most diverse show to date, and includes new works in watercolor – the medium for which he has been most recognized in his 12 years on the local art scene.

The exhibit is heavily influenced by the artist’s daytime job as a farmer, which he said created for him a fascination with natural settings. The late afternoon, Gasperi said, is the time he puts down the plow and picks up the brush.

His paintings subsequently show the world as seen from his south shore home, and mainly depicts moods the predusk sun casts on the trees, hills and the people of the south shore.

Though the late afternoon sun inspires the paintings, Gasperi said most of his painted images come from memory. “A year of not painting means a jam up of images in my head,” Gasperi said. “Whereas my work used to start with a photograph, now there is only a sketch preceded by an image in my mind’s eye.”

The paintings in “Late Afternoons” are not as overtly sociological as those in his 2000 solo show “Tending Life,” which depicted local farmers in their fields or selling produce at La Reine market. Gasperi said the show was to bring attention to St. Croix’s often unrecognized local farmers. “Late Afternoons,” he said, is much more subtle.

“I use symbols such as a breadfruit,” he said, “to convey the idea of a locally grown crop that Crucians can take advantage of.”

Other paintings have symbolic messages about man taking too much advantage of nature, such as the acrylic on wood panel “Reefwalkers,” which depicts a conch shell spiraling over the sea with fishermen far in the distance. “It’s a ghost of a conch,” Gasperi said, “because the conch is over-harvested.”

Although he is known mostly for his watercolors, in this show Gasperi has included paintings in acrylic and experimentations with sculpures, made with found objects. The sculptures, which resemble tiny landscapes with deep shadows, are a combination of local stones, sand, ash and cement. Influencing the sculptures were the stonework of ancient farm buildings that Gasperi said he saw on a recent trip to Sweden.

An opening reception will be held for the show Friday from 6 to 9pm, but the exhibit will continue until July 13. For more information, call the gallery at 773-8169.

The St. Croix Avis
36B La Grande Princesse
PO Box 750, Christiansted, VI 00820
Phone: (340)773-2300