Carlo Albucci is a Florentine painter of curious happenings. He paints ironic, iconic, surreal and comic events sometimes all together, sometimes one at a time. In all ways they are fun to look at and even more fun to figure out. These “happenings”, all oil paintings on masonite, are inventions of his rather elaborate and curious imagination, or maybe not. Only the viewer can decide. Anyways you look at them though, the will leave you wondering, smiling and perhaps laughing at this crazy world he’s invented.

Carlo Albucci, born in 1947, is a well known antiques dealer who does the famous open air antique markets throughout Tuscany, where he and his wife Anna live, almost every weekend of the year. They travel to Arezzo, Lucca, Firenze, Siena, wherever there’s good weather and an open market. During the week, Anna tends to their home and cats, collects more antiques and Carlo paints. He loves to paint. He paints from his heart, and it shows. His scenes are rich in the fables and foibles of Italian culture and religion.

Growing up in Florence it would be nearly impossible to not absorb the rich heritage of art, church, eccentric within the daily life. That is only the tip of the iceberg for Carlo. He has taken the ordinary and stepped outside the box to show the other side of the dogma, tradition and fantasy. His paintings are rich and lyrical. They resonate with joy and his ability to laugh at himself and everyone else too.

This show runs through July 15. Gold/Smith Gallery is located at 8 McKown St. in Boothbay Harbor. For more information, call the gallery at 633-6252 and visit http://goldsmithgallery.net.