CAMBRIDGE, MA.- Real Estate Services presents the exhibit Paintings by Carmela Cattuti & Ruth Ann Howden at Harvard Square. Carmela Cattuti’s paintings are about what is underneath the cityscape, landscape, and still life. She explores the subterranean world by representing what sits on top. Her work questions what holds objects in place; what stabilizes form. Even the most watery of landscape, such as Venice, Italy is held in form by energy. In her paintings she explores the substance behind the form and how it directs movement. Through the purposeful application of paint movement can be uncovered.

Music often inspires Ruth Howden’s art. She thinks of abstract painting as "instrumental music". Without identifiable images or "lyrics" to guide the viewer's response, a painting speaks directly to basic responses. Layered and involved, her abstract paintings are an expression of joy in rhythmic patterns created with color and textures. Her primary concerns are light and illusion translated into two dimensions.

Ruth Howden says that her painting is Layered and involved, my abstract paintings are an expression of joy in rhythmic patterns created with color and textures. My primary concerns are light and illusion translated into two dimensions.

Capturing intangibles - feelings, sounds, moods - is the challenge I've set for myself. Using textures both real and rendered is my delight. Many of my paintings utilize gold leaf and mixed-metal leaf. Their reflective surfaces capture even more light and add another dimension to the textural rhythms.

I begin most work as a monotype because printers inks are such lush and intense colors. Then I work into the painting with pen/ink, pencils, pastels, chalk. Handmade papers and gold or mixed-metal leaf are also applied.

A painting is complete when your eyes can dance through it and with it.