Mariel Capanna: MATRIX 198

For MATRIX 198 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Philadelphia painter Mariel Capanna fills the museum's contemporary gallery with new canvases whose densely interrelated shapes, colors and symbols read at first like a bustling town before resolving into something more abstract and dreamlike. Painted fast in oils mixed with wax and marble dust, the works carry a distinctive shine. Capanna made the paintings in direct response to The Wadsworth, sizing her canvases to the gallery's entranceway and basing new works on pieces from the museum's permanent American art collection, including works by Florine Stettheimer, Bob Thompson and John Trumbull. She often paints while films play in her studio, and titles such as Flowers, Ladders, Fires, Flags reflect that range of influence. The entrance is framed by a plaster-and-red-earth-pigment panel titled Sinopia for an Egress. On view through July 26, MATRIX 198 continues the Wadsworth's long-running contemporary series, which gives artists unusual latitude over how their work is shown along with special access to the collection.