I'm quite taken with this small painting, which I can't stop looking at, and which has a fantastic presence and gravitas that I think far exceeds its small size, though its scale is exactly right. I see a green snake with bared teeth and fantastically long tongue, which winds through and around the rest of the forms, literally tying them together. I'd guess the painting--titled "The Story"--portrays Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with red tree at center and ambiguous, abstracted figures to either side of it. I really love how the green body of the snake doubles as the green of the earth, and how its body, together with its arching tongue, form a circle and a frame around the scene; an endless loop of falls from grace.
The back of the canvas is signed Andrea Panella, and there is a sticker from the Stavaridis Gallery on Newbury Street, Boston, which operated through the 1980s, closing in 1989. I haven't found much information on the artist, except that I believe she studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and received her BFA in Painting from Mass College of Art, Boston, in 1987.
Thickly painted in oil and wax on canvas, the painting is framed in a deep black painted wood frame. Canvas measures 8"t x10"w. Framed 11 3/8" x 13 3/4" x 2 1/2" deep. Painting is in excellent condition. Frame shows some wear to the paint and a few scrapes /white marks on the surface, which could be touched up, but which I don't think really detract.
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