Luz/Oscuridad, Light/Darkness, Tom Vega’s third solo show at 440 Gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn December 4, 2008

The show runs from Friday, November 28, 2008 through Sunday, January 4, 2009. Opening Reception is on Thursday, December 4 from 6-8 PM.

Duality informs the work of painter Tom Vega in his show “Luz/Oscuridad.” These abstract works are expressions of light and shadow, joy and sorrow, luminosity and opacity, delicacy and assertion. Contradictory and complimentary opposites are twinned in this intense colorist’s palette.

Light both illuminates and hides as it creates intensities of brightness and darkness. That which light exposes is surrounded by a greater ring of invisibility. Vega’s paintings reveal pain and love and struggle and fulfillment obscured by veils, curtains that the viewer is dared to lift. Abstract and gestural, the paintings are founded on the figure, built up through layers of underpainting into psychological and physiological self-portraits. For all that he urgently exposes to the viewer, much remains shadowed, just as those we love most always remain enigmas.

“Luz/Oscuridad” will be on exhibit until January 4, 2009 at 440 Sixth Avenue, between 9th and 10th Streets in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Hours are Thursdays and Fridays 4-7 PM and Saturdays and Sundays 12-6 PM or by appointment. Admission is free. For more information, call the Gallery at 718-499-3844.

Official Website: http://440gallery.com