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by Allan Appel | Dec 12, 2007 10:31 am

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Posted to: Arts

In Constance LaPalombara’s Citythere isn’t a person or a vehicle in sight. Not even in a work called “Gridlock” or in this view, Ninth Square.

LaPalombara’s oil-on-linen paintings of New Haven streets, facades, roofs and aerial views are now on view at the Whitney Humanities Center in a show entitled The City.

LaPalombara said her subject is a portrait of New Haven’s light and the patterns and shadows it makes on streets and buildings. Yet to create these quietly provocative views of a de-peopled city, she has immersed herself in its life, setting up on street corners, negotiating with truck drivers, and dodging big dogs.

LaPalombara, who is a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, paints still lifes and interiors too. But transiting back and forth from doing landscapes in Italy to working indoors at a studio she landed on State Street between Crown and George some years ago made her feel cramped in town. “I got interested in the light as it moved across the city. The light in New Haven is much less soft than in Umbria. Here’s it’s sharper, more geometric. That’s what moves me. And it’s so great to go outside to study it. Going outside in the city is a discovery, a physical experience.”

She painted on the streets. She made arrangements with various landlords, such as the NewAlliance Bank at Church and Elm, to paint “Gridlock” and other works from some of their unused rooms on high-up floors. And she took herself to the water’s edge in Fair Haven as well as to the port district. “Everywhere I go, I’m looking at light. In New Haven the light reflects off everything with much more delineation than in Italy. And it’s even different from a city like Rome.”

Her looking can take years, often interrupted by travel to Italy or Maine. But when she comes back to a work it is at the same time of day, in the same light if possible. In for example this portrait of the Ninth Square, she kept coming back to it over a five or six-year period.

“I was happy enough, finally, with the light,” she said. “I just couldn’t get the section on the bottom right to please me. There was something off about the perspective. It was OK if it wasn’t completely right or true; but I had to make it at least convincing.”

For a person whose work is de-peopled, she revels in the experience with people as she paints. For a work called “Full Stop” in the port district, she dodged trucks and was engaged by truckers. “One of them wanted me to get his truck in the picture,” she said. “I asked him how long he could leave it there. He said about 20 minutes. Well, I told him that just might not be enough time. Another guy, a really big guy who always traveled with a big dog in his truck, told me I went places to paint that he would never dare to go. Another looked at what I was doing and asked me if I’d paint his truck. He meant a paint job. I guess I was flattered.”

This man, C.C. Chang, was, well, stopped, by Full Stop. That is, he was arrested by the painting, one of 22 in the exhibition. He’s an engineer who works in New York City. His wife is a Yale professor; many of the some 75 people who crowded room 108 at the Whitney Center, at the corner of Wall and Church, for the opening seemed to be Yale community members. Chang said that when engineers begin a project, especially in a big city, they must do a shadow study. That is, where the shadow and shade will fall in a prospective construction. He was fascinated by LaPalombara’s take.

Another visitor checked out Sunlight and Gridlock and said to a reporter, “You know, Constance’s work reminds me of Edward Hopper’s. Except when I look at Hopper’s work, it makes me sad. When I look at Constance’s work, it doesn’t.”

A difference, of course, is that Hopper has lonely people in buildings, which are usually lit from the inside, whereas LaPalombara has no people in her buildings, whose lighting comes from the outside. When told of the viewer’s comment regarding Hopper, LaPalombara said, “Well, my work is about light. Anyway, maybe she should have been sad.”

The City contains many views focused on Orange Street, and downtown, and others of Sleeping Giant, Mitchell Drive, and Grand Avenue near English Station. It is on view through March at the Whitney Humanities Center on Monday and Wednesday from 3 to 5 p.m., and the works are for sale. Those unable to attend during the prescribed hours can make an appointment. The contact is Inessa Laskova at 432-0670

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