NEW YORK, NY.- Carl Palazzolo has described the central themes of his work as memory and the passage of time, impermanence and loss, longing and desire. He has employed many different images and motifs to express his sensibility, sometimes mediated through references to other artists, from Monet to Sargent to Johns, as well as Italian filmmakers of the 1960s.

The Hours, 2014, is composed of twenty-four canvasses arranged in a grid of four rows of six. Each canvas is a satisfyingly complete painting, but the composition in its entirety broadly summarizes key aspects of his recent work. Clouds, numbers, rose petals and an ensemble of evocative objects — a yardstick, a light bulb, a clock, an unfolded cloth, a folded pink shirt — are all caught in the embrace of minimalist yet painterly abstract fields. The painting furthers the dialogue between realism and abstraction long central to his work.

Maine has been Palazzolo’s summer home for thirty years. Arriving there in the spring of 2015, he began painting on eight-by-eight inch panels, the diminutive format that allowed a new measure of improvisation and technical experimentation. Some of the paintings are observational, others entirely abstract. It was only when he returned to his studio in Houston in the fall that Palazzolo recognized the degree to which the range of color and subject were indelibly anchored in Maine. The paintings had begun to take on the identity of an ongoing series that he thought of as Maine Notes. The episodic nature of the fifty-one paintings reflects the grace of specific moments, experienced in the present and filtered through the artist’s sensibility. The results are both a continuation and a reinvention of Palazzolo’s vision and touch.

Born in Torrington, Connecticut, Palazzolo studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the late 1960s. He showed with established Boston galleries during the 1970s and continued to do so after he moved to New York in 1975. His work was included in the 1975 Whitney Biennial and in a series of exhibitions at Bette Stoler Gallery in Tribeca. The prevalence of interest in figuration and narrative in relation to abstraction in painting led to his inclusion in numerous group shows during the 1980s.

Lennon, Weinberg represents Carl Palazzolo in New York and has presented seven exhibitions of his paintings and watercolors since 1988. He is represented in Houston by Texas Gallery and has had solo show with Rebecca Ibel Gallery in Columbus, Ohio; Robert Bowman Ltd in London; Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco; Marguerite Oestreicher Fine Arts in New Orleans and Thomas Babeor in La Jolla, California. In her role as curator, Joan Sonnabend of Obelisk Gallery in Boston acquired many works for the collections of the international Sonesta Hotels. His work is in numerous public and private collections.

Palazzolo has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the University of New Orleans, Massachusetts College of Art, the School of Visual Arts and Syracuse University. He has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Peter Reed Foundation.

In conjunction with the 2013 Spoleto Festival USA, the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, presented The Spoleto Watercolors of Stephen Mueller and Carl Palazzolo from the collection of David and Carol Rawle. The Hours was first shown in an exhibition at Texas Gallery in Houston last year.

Palazzolo lives and works in Houston, Texas and Robinhood, Maine.