Carolanna Parlato's New Paintings Shift from Pours to Hand-Gesture Techniques at Elizabeth Harris Gallery

Carolanna Parlato's exhibition 'Behind the Sun' at Elizabeth Harris Gallery from September 6 to October 6, 2012 marked a significant departure in her abstract painting practice. Located at 529 West 20th Street in New York City, the show featured works from 2012 that moved away from her previous Pop-inspired palette of acidic pinks and blues toward warm, earthy oranges, yellows, browns, and blacks. Parlato abandoned her trademark pours and puddles, instead employing brushes, sanding, and spray painting to make her hand's movement and gesture speed visible. This shift transformed her approach from engaging the canvas as an object to treating it primarily as a surface, with fast linear brush strokes emphasizing the picture plane's rectangle. While pieces like 'Dark as Day,' 'Parallel Shift,' and 'Mirage' retained the vibrant physical force of her earlier work, many paintings in the exhibition lacked tension between embedded forms, with orientation appearing happenstance and marks sometimes seeming decorative. 'High Summer,' a bold painting prominently displayed, used a bright yellow covering over three-quarters of the surface. The new works were described as representing nature's aura or energy rather than performing its forces, with some critics noting a chaotic, Rothko-esque quality. Despite this, Parlato's audacious move away from established techniques was seen as having potential for a more intimate conversation about nature's experience.