26 Oct 2007-12 Jan 2008. Some 30 works follow the pictorial evolution of Savinio (Giorgio De Chirico’s nephew) over the past seven years. Savinio belongs to that threatened species, the painterly painter. He splendidly holds his own, weaving bright textures of luminous paint. His landscapes are of Arcadia – bosky hills, clear springs, moody prehistoric rocks, meadows sparsely sprinkled with violets. In his interiors or “rooms”, of which he has done many lately, he poses mysterious families or lovers in fluid configurations. They stand or sit in warm sheltering spaces, here and there an angel, a cat, an antique stone head lurking among them. This painter of today is steeped in the past and overcomes it. Still he cannot gainsay the aura of his relatives (the father is Alberto Savinio, the uncle Giorgio De Chirico) and the traces of Poussin and the Symbolists, specially the sweet darkness of Odilon Redon, flow underneath his work. The surfaces on which he works his fluid apparitions evoking subtle myths are clotted with filaments of golden yellows, purples and violets, broody reds, petal pinks and whites. Not only does he brush them on paper and canvas, but bravely applies them to that most kitschy of materials, black velvet, and wins. (Schnabel used it to lesser effect.) Savinio tells stories only paint can tell – a shimmering and shadowy world full of echoes. It is a pity that his rich progress of the last seven years has been hung in the least user-friendly showplace in town: stark ice-white walls and glaring neon light make the paintings appear like posters. Ulisse Gallery Contemporary Art. Edith Schloss