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IMAGE BY GIOVANNI DECUNTO ART FULL Steve Jobs, the Innovator. everything is illuminated LOCAL ARTIST GIOVANNI DECUNTO'S PAINTINGS BECOME PART OF DTR MODERN GALLERIES' COLLECTION AND A BRILLIANT NEW EXHIBITION. BY JANICE O'LEARY G iovanni DeCunto spent his teenage years living in an abandoned tene- ment in Lawrence, attending high school during the day and working nights in a shoebox factory. It was in that crumbling tenement house that he began painting on a large scale—on the walls. But it wasn't until around 1992, years after attending the University of Padova in Italy, a mecca for classi- cal masters, where he went to study after graduating from Boston University, that he looked at his palette and then at a painting and wondered how he could directly combine the two. Only then did DeCunto fully develop his signature technique, abandoning brushes and applying paint directly to canvas from the tube. His pieces have entered the permanent collections at the Smithsonian, Harvard's Fogg Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts. One of the North End 66 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM resident's most recent large-scale portraits, of Steve Jobs, titled Innovator, will hang at DTR Modern this November as part of an exhibition to celebrate the gallery's official representation of DeCunto. The 5-by-5½-foot painting appears almost holographic, an effect created by applying thousands of dots directly from the tube, combined with layers of phosphorescent paint. "I was inspired by the computer screens developed by Jobs to create paintings that transmit light," says DeCunto. "However, it was his innovation in getting peo- ple to communicate in a new way that truly inspired me." The portrait appears luminous at night, lighting a dark room the way Jobs lit the world of technol- ogy. "Giovanni DeCunto" runs November 1–30. DTR Modern Galleries, 167 Newbury St., 617-424-9700; dtrmodern.com BC

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