A Very Strong Current

In 1978 the curatorial department of the Saint Louis Art Museum created the Currents series to showcase work from emergent and early-to-mid-career artists. Almost 30 years later, the series hits the magic century mark with Currents 100: Angelina Gualdoni. In a nice bit of synchronicity, Gualdoni is a native St. Louisan — but that's not the basis for her selection. Gualdoni's paintings deal with the intersection of built environment and landscape. The concepts of utopian architecture, moribund shopping malls, and the cyclical nature of construction and destruction all play a part in her work, but Gualdoni doesn't resort to proselytizing for or against any of these things: It is the phenomenon of the spaces and locations themselves that interests her. Her paintings are observational and expressive without being dogmatic. The ebb and flow of the urban landscape is the subject and the subtext — rendered carefully, and with an eye for the strange beauty of these temporary monuments. Gualdoni discusses her work at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 29, in the auditorium of the Saint Louis Art Museum in Forest Park (314-721-0072 or www.slam.org; free). Currents 100: Angelina Gualdoni opens in Gallery 335 the same night, and remains on display through Sunday, June 17.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: March 29. Continues through June 17