Louis Risoli and Peter Vanderwarker at Gallery NAGA
Mar 4, 2023
By Charles Giuliano
Following the work over a number of decades, Louis Risoli has been among Boston’s foremost artists. He is long overdue for a museum restrospective.
My interest started with the remarkable, and at the time daunting, Muscle Men series. With thick paint and abstracted forms the bulked male anatomy was treated with both Pop candor and irony as well as layered admiration.
That evolved in a number of phases and exhibitions into patterned abstract paintings with impasto textured surfaces. A trope was the love of exploring the materials, density and impact of richly saturated and lavishly applied pigment. A constant was vibrancy of surface for the gaze to languish over.
For a time I knew the artist well and saw the work in all its nuances quite regularly.
We were a part of the movement of artists that formed a growing community in what was then the cheap and affordable mixed ethnic community of East Boston.
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