Vincent Giarrano Vincent Giarrano is an artist-flâneur, an observer of city life. He is alert to the compositional possibilities of architecture experienced at street level, especially under the changing effects of light. His milieu is New York City’s SoHo, a neighborhood of Beaux-Arts cast-iron palazzos, lately repurposed as art galleries and upscale boutiques. Giarrano clearly relishes the handsome façades, but as a painter rather than an architectural documentarian. Buildings provide arrangements of rectangles, spaces he fills with gestural paint-handling in an urban- tonalist palette of black, rust, pearl, and battleship grey. Doorways and windows, often framed in pilasters, function scenographically, too, as backdrops for the casual drama of everyday life. His dramatis personae consists mainly of stylish urbanites, mostly young women-walking quickly across intersections or sitting on low steps, often talking on their cellphones, or congregating in front of shop windows. The individuals remain anonymous, but the ways they move and the ways they dress have an anthropological interest. In a metropolis where real estate is expensive and the communal life is vibrant, the streets are extensions of personal space. Giarrano’s mise-en-scène reflects that dynamic. For him, cityscape and genre painting, exterior and interior are fluid categories. Protagonists stand casually chatting in front of complex backdrops: one window may be a vitrine displaying chic clothing; another may be a ghostly mirror, capturing the image of a façade across the street. Giarrano’s streetscapes explore the relationship of figure to setting, specifically the way bodies move through space. He isolates vignettes from the flow of people in motion, bringing into sharper focus some visual incident you might glimpse out of the corner of your eye. The hectic animation of his street scenes falls away in his apartment interiors. A rumpled bed-occupied by a napping human or cat, or invitingly empty-is both a cocoon and a meditation on the color white. Outside or in, in a crowd or alone, Giarrano translates the pulse of the city into the visual rhythm of his paintings. - Gail Leggio - American Arts Quarterly

At the Algonquin by Vincent Giarrano, 20x30, Oil on Canvas, $12,000

Jade in Brooklyn by Vincent Giarrano, 24x36, Oil on Canvas, $14,000

City Light by Vincent Giarrano, 24x36, Oil on Canvas, $14,000

At the Patisserie in Tribeca by Vincent Giarrano, 18x24, Oil on Canvas, $10,000

In the Lower East Side by Vincent Giarrano, 24x36, Oil on Canvas, $14,000

Uptown Entrance by Vincent Giarrano, 28x19, Oil on Panel, $9,000

Almost Ready by Vincent Giarrano, 13.25x19.75, Oil on Canvas, $6,000

Six Steps by Vincent Giarrano, 18x24, Oil on Canvas, $10,000

Heading East on Houston by Vincent Giarrano, 24x36, Oil on Canvas, $14,000

The Apartment by Vincent Giarrano, 18x24, Oil on Canvas, $9,000

Dressing by Vincent Giarrano, 16x20, Oil on Canvas, $7,000

Black Dress by Vincent Giarrano, 18x24, Oil on Canvas, $8,000

Wall Street by Vincent Giarrano, 8x10, Oil on Canvas, $2,500

Blue Wall by Vincent Giarrano, 24x18, Oil on Canvas, $9,000

Contemplation by Vincent Giarrano, 24x36, Oil on Canvas, $13,000

Walking on Spring Street by Vincent Giarrano, 24x36, Oil on Canvas, $13,000

The Designer by Vincent Giarrano, 10.5x13.5, Oil on Panel, $3,000

Reading by Vincent Giarrano, 19x26, Oil on Canvas, $9,000

Blue Satin by Vincent Giarrano, 6x8, Oil on Canvas, $1,600

Apartment in Dumbo by Vincent Giarrano, 20x30, Oil on Canvas, $10,000

Resting by Vincent Giarrano, 10x24, Oil on Panel, $5,500

New York City Breakfast by Vincent Giarrano, 5x7, Oil on Canvas, $1,200

Jade by Vincent Giarrano, 10x15, Oil on Panel, $3,000

Green Wall by Vincent Giarrano, 10.5x13.5, Oil on Panel, $3,000

A Conversation in Soho by Vincent Giarrano, 6x8, Oil on Panel, $1,600

A Dragon Rises from a Small Stream by Vincent Giarrano, 24x30, Oil on Canvas, $13,000

The Comforter by Vincent Giarrano, 24x48, Oil on Panel, $19,000