11/1992

PROVINCETOWN PAPER

Frames of Vision

by John Shutz

Gallery Matrix, a new gallery on the West End featuring local artists, opened on June 26 with Jennifer Ditacchio's sghow' "Windows".
All of Ditacchio's works of hot wax and deeply colored pigments are discovered behind the frames and glass of old wooden window panes, so very effective for her evocative paintings. Her encaustics are layer upon layer of textures- compelling because of the thinckness and application of the medium. Each work produces in the viewer a definate reflective mood, a sense of inner contemplation. The images are always on the edge of recognition, summoning up ghosts of memories that are glimpsed out of the corner of the minds eye.
Standout pieces in the show include the lightbox "Box", with its sense of lonliness and yearning, "Yersterdays," with its warm glow of past dreams and idealism and the stark "Pearl Street", which causes one to want to turn up an imaginary collar to the cold beauty of a winter night long remembered- a glimpse of the infinite that can only be found in the chill bright stars at the waning of the year.
Ditacchio successfully transmutes each of these external landscapes into the internal, emotional landscapes of memory. The vivacious young artists has begun turning emotions into vivid images. Her work will be on display at Gallery Matrix all summer. The one person show runs through July 9.