By John Chambless
Staff Writer

One of the great things about strolling through Kennett Square is the diversity of the art galleries. This month, the Longwood Art Gallery is featuring fun, splashy watercolors by Downingtown artist Jack Giangiulio, while just down the street, Mala Galleria is spotlighting artworks from around the world.

At Longwood, Giangiulio's loose, fun style is immediately identifiable. His subject matter ranges from lively cityscapes of Philadelphia (“Center City,” “The Italian Market”) to lively floral still lifes that pop with color.

His overhead view of a restaurant interior treats the tables and seated patrons almost as abstract elements, creating an expansive view that's full of details. His downtown scene, “Out and About,” conveys the vitality and buildings of an older part of a city, all expressed with the loosest brushstrokes and blocks of color. Giangiulio's “Blue Sky” does indeed make the most of its vivid hue and bare tree branches.

Throughout the show, the works are large-scale for maximum impact, and they share a spirit of whimsy that's charming – and contagious. You're sure to find something you love.

Longwood Art Gallery (200 E. State St., Kennett Square) hosts wprls bu Jack Giangiulio through May 31. For more information, call 610-444-0146 or visit www.longwoodartgallery.com.

A few doors away on State Street, Mala Galleria has been showcasing works by international artists that you'll find nowhere else. This month, there are 15 artists spotlighted in the two-room gallery, and each one is dazzlingly talented.

In the front room is a large landscape by Kostas Damalas that depicts a wide expanse of rolling hills in Greece, with a tiny ribbon of human figures on a winding road that stretches into the far distance. They are refugees, you realize after a moment, and their misery is a note of tragedy in the midst of the beautiful scene.

Serbian artist Vojkan Morar has several paintings of angels hovering over wave after wave of tiny human figures. Some are in intricately painted buildings that resemble heavenly cities. Even Morar's larger works are jam-packed with hundreds of figures, but when he does the same thing in works that are barely three inches wide, his works become something else entirely. They resemble outsider art, but are rooted in the very real sufferings of the people of Serbia, who are – in these works, at least – overseen by a heavenly host.

There are three lovely nude bronzes by Russian-born artist Olga Nielsen, as well as two luminous pastel nudes. Indian artist Rinal Parikh shows black-and-white and color works that look like tapestries, and Serbian artist Bogdan Miscevich shows mind-altering, surreal fantasy paintings that have the same level of detail and strangeness as the works of Hieronymus Bosch.

Don't miss the small painting by Serge Krupnov – a haunting, dreamlike oil of looming hedges and a shadowy path; or the paintings on glass by Swiss artist Mirjam Seeger, whose fish and butterfly are lit from behind and achieve a nearly three-dimensional quality.

Mala Galleria (206 E. State St., Kennett Square) hosts “Around the World With 15 Artists” through May 31. For more information, call 610-998-5892 or visit www.malagalleria.com.

To contact Staff Writer John Chambless, email [email protected].