February 5- March 1, 2020. Gallery hours 12-5PM Tuesday-Sunday. Closed Monday. Galatea Fine Art, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston MA 02118. Christine Palamidessi's large mixed media monotypes and plaster talismans are inspired by the 900-year-old frescoes she found in out-of-the-way chapels, crypts and Crusader hideaways in Southern Italy. “During that era, pictures of the divine were linear, flat and stable; in candlelight they flickered, moved and fascinated.”

Palamidessi converses with the traditional Byzantine image-text pattern by writing dialogue on many of the images. For example, her “Internet Madonna” bemoans the shortening attention span of her dear son and worries about his getting homework done. Her plaster talismans project from the wall and depict graceful, emotional hand gestures that are meant to touch the heart and to be touched by the viewer.

In her studio, while putting together this series, Palamidessi couldn’t help but be reminded of how the past is also the present and hear the movie character Yoda’s words: “Luminous beings are we.”

An artist, sculptor and published novelist, Palamidessi works in her Boston studio and in Salento, Italy, which is the southernmost region on the heel of the Italian boot.

The human form and its irrepressible spirit continues to be the object of her study.