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Mediums that inherently flirt with technology like photography and video are naturally better accommodated online, while the dramatic effects of brushstrokes over canvas are a challenge to convey for the screen. Upper East Side gallery Di Donna assumes this delicate task to present colorful abstract paintings by Portuguese Modernist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. The digital show comes from Paris and London, where the public enjoyed Vieira da Silva’s hallucinatory densely-colored abstractions in person, and spans the artist’s five-decade-long career, which mainly flourished in avant-garde circles of postwar Paris. “The subtlety of colors, the texture and scale,” notes director Christina Floyd, “are challenging to capture virtually”; however, she appreciates the broadened international audience that now has access to more than 30 paintings the overlooked artist created with visual dynamism and a broad range of references, including Ballet Russe and icons of card games. Hanging the show before the art world shut down allowed the gallery to film the installation, which provides deeper understanding of the painter's use of scale.

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