San Francisco’s Alberto Toscano creates square polymer paintings with a tactile and pictorial quality. His small formats, mostly 5″ to 9″ squares, contain industrial landscapes, fantastic figures, zoomorphic elements, surreal structures and remote scenarios that resonate with past and present.

Layering over foggy, colorful backgrounds, Alberto makes his scenes out of sharp-edged slivers of black and white canes.

Peggy Carlan and Carolyn Bond sent me the link to Alberto and I remembered having bought similar designs at the Flying Shuttle in Seattle. Turns out those items come from Raw Art which was founded by Laura Blaconá and Alberto in 1994. They have been producing a line of functional art pieces since then.

Meanwhile Alberto’s paintings have appeared in numerous southwest galleries and shows. You can piece together the story from his site, blog and Facebook sites. You’ll find Raw Art on Facebook.