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Alberto MontoreanoThe Ozone Layer Oil on Canvas 39” x 31.5”he sky is a wise teacher,” says Alberto Montoreano. “Looking at“Tit and appreciating it, we can detect in it the reflections of life.” Thepainter has learned a lot from looking at and appreciating the sky, andhas effectively employed what he has learned in his unique, dreamlikeworks. There is a strong feeling of air and space in these images.Clouds swirl through the air, or around seductively blurred landscapes.Montoreano is a master at using white paint in a variety of ways —to depict those clouds, to create a feeling of mist hanging in the air,or to infuse his paintings with light and dimension, giving the veryatmosphere weight and form. But his strengths as a colorist are notlimited to his handling of white paint. He has a strong grasp of howto use hues to punctuate his images, rendering bright blue flashes inan otherwise muted sky, or vibrant reds against a backdrop of subtlyglowing browns.Montoreano also works the edges between representation andabstraction. Some of his images are almost photographic in theirdetails, showing realistic skies and land formations. In others, ghostlybeings wrapped in wisps will emerge from mysterious backgrounds.What unites all these images, however, is the palpably physical effecthe creates, no matter how abstract the compositions become.www.betomontoreano.com.arwww.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Alberto_Montoreano.aspxYasuyuki ItoColor, light and a clean sense of line combinein Yasuyuki Ito’s works to depict a world thatbrings stained glass windows and pictures fromchildren’s storybooks to mind. The artist says he isdrawn to the “solidity” of oil paint, and his images arefilled with areas of deeply saturated color that have apalpably physical presence. Those areas of color areoften broken into small pieces, creating the effect ofa mosaic. Each piece maintains a defined, separatepresence while becoming part of an overall pattern.The images created using this method have a verytactile quality. They do not feel like flat images — theviewer is strongly tempted to reach out and touchthem.Ito also extends his technique into more conventionallyrealistic scenes, turning blocks of a color into a road’ssurface, a tiled floor or a brick wall. At times he blursthe boundaries of his colors, moving from preciselyRising Sun 36” x 46”defined patters to hazy depictions of fantasy worlds, rendering sunlit forests and mysterious mountain landscapes in whichnight skies glow with vibrant blues and reds. Ito’s works become all the more impressive when one realizes that he has severelylimited eyesight. Despite that challenge, his images of what he calls scenery “in the head” are distinctive, visually engaging andaltogether unique.www.skyship55.comwww.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Yasuyuki_Ito.aspx45 ARTisSpectrum