Snooze, a tight painting of an alarm clock reading 6:03, commences Anthony Palocci’s group of thirteen paintings. Is that 6:03 am or pm? It feels either too early or too late. This bit of agita followed me as I wended around the walls of How’s Howard?’s show of Palocci’s 11×15 gouaches. Stand with a piece for a minute, and an attachment can develop quickly. There’s a private, mutual understanding between the viewer and what we know is just an object. But is it a bond with painting as object, or is it with the object that’s painted? It’s tense. am or pm?

A car door. A gun, clip and ammo. A stay-tab on a beer. An autobiographical bar of soap. How about the gun? Do we care? Each painting is a question, but the answer doesn’t matter. We can recognize them as familiar. We don’t pretend to know just what they mean, but we’re already pals. I finally found myself lost in a domed landscape of pointed metal pyramids surrounding a cylinder glowing like an oracle. What is it?

Show runs until 10.15. How’s Howard?, 450 Harrison Ave., Suite 309c, Boston. howshoward.com

This review is being simultaneously published at Delicious Line, deliciousline.org. David Curcio is an artist who lives and works in Watertown, MA. His work can be viewed at davidcurcio.com.