TORRINGTON — The work of a Newtown artist is being featured through early October in a one-artist show in Torrington.

Lydia Viscardi’s collection of mixed-media painting and works on paper called “Here and Hereafter” opened this week in the East Gallery of Five Points Gallery, 33 Main Street. The exhibition will remain on view through October 3.

Admission to the gallery is free. It is open Friday through Sunday, 1-5 pm, and by appointment.

A virtual tour is also available. The artist is also planning to participate in an artist’s talk on Friday, September 18, at 6 pm. Contact the gallery at 860-618-7222 or visit fivepointsgallery.org for full details.

Depictions of heaven and hell were ubiquitous in Viscardi’s parochial school education. Subsequent art history classes and countless visits to museums, cathedrals, and churches reinforced the doctrines and didactic imagery that formed her impression of the afterlife.

Viscardi says her beliefs have evolved beyond her early religious indoctrination, but the imagined euphoria of heaven and torments of hell remain indelibly lodged in her psyche. “Here and Hereafter” is part of the memento mori tradition dating from the time of Socrates, and reflected in early Christianity and the Netherlands 17th Century still life vanitas paintings, meant to remind us of our mortality.

Viscardi’s paintings are divided into three realms: heaven, Earth, and hell. They include oil and acrylic paint, metallic paper mounted to canvas, collage, found hand-crafted textiles, and fabric. She often uses fabric and textiles in her work as they are reminiscent of domesticity and security, and collage elements that include familiar photographic imagery.

In “Here and Hereafter,” the textiles and collage counter the mystery of the unknown. The works on paper are collage and mixed media depictions of heaven above Earth.

Lydia Viscardi’s home and studio are in Newtown. She is an adjunct professor of studio art at Quinnipiac University and Housatonic Community College. She is also a museum educator at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield and Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport.

Located in a historic downtown building, Five Points Gallery is a nonprofit contemporary art gallery showcasing professional regional, national and international visual artists. The gallery holds three renovated exhibition spaces and has earned a reputation as one of Connecticut’s outstanding contemporary art venues.

Five Points follows the State of Connecticut’s COVID-19 guidelines. All visitors inside the gallery are required to wear a mask and observe social distancing protocol. Visit the gallery’s website for additional information.