I Can See You (Christian DeFillipo, 2019) Flashe on Canvas
Here are a couple of lovely pigeon-themed paintings by my friend, Christian DeFillipo, a Queens-based artist who studied at Rhode Island School of Design. Christian’s intimately sized paintings are made with flashe, a vinyl-based paint which dries in homogeneous opaque layers. The effect combines the best aspects of screen printing, paper cutting, and acrylic painting. Christian’s works all seem to exist in a world of warm summer colors and ingenuous happiness. The flattened forms and decorative foliage makes one imagine of a more innocent Matisse. Although Christian’s work does not always have the pastoral simplicity and winsomeness of these two particular canvases (some of his other works delve into Indonesian and marine motifs, for example), they are usually comparably carefree in tone and delightful in warm vibrant color.
Both these paintings focus on pigeons, which are emblematic of freedom and happiness. The painting at top is titled “I Can See You” and the courting icterine doves put me strongly in mind of the doves in Boucher or even in Roman artworks (for doves were sacred to Venus). I stupidly failed to write down the title of the second work, but the single white dove flying away from the painting, likewise gives the impression of a divine visitation–but not for scary eschatological purposes–just a pleasure visit. Christian’s works are likewise a beatific miniature vacation–a daytrip to a park in summer where it feels like the doves and the trees are secretly smiling with us. You should check them out at his online gallery (and thanks, Christian, for letting me use the images).
ferrebeekeeper 
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October 3, 2019 at 4:44 AM
Isobel Necessary
I love the use of colour and shape – particularly the leaves in the top image, and the horizon line in the second. Flashe sounds like a really interesting process, and I like the result, so I’ll have to look up more about how it works! Thanks for sharing.