Vincenzo Amato at Earl McGrath

Although sculptor Vincenzo Amato has lived in New York for over a decade, his artwork hasn't lost the allegria we associate with his sunny Italian homeland. That was the feeling, at least, received from his light and spirited show of eight colorful lacquer-on-welded-steel sculptures, which offered a welcome respite from current tidings of war and colorful, but less delightful, homeland-security alerts.

Unlike Amato's previous work, which has focused on architecture and trees, the theme this time around was nautical. Using minimalist forms, as smooth and streamlined as a Cadillac tail fin, Amato induced that quintessential industrial material--steel--to evoke a mythic sense of the sea. The merest outlines of a curved hull and deck-side cabin become a playful bit of Biblical history in Coral Red Ark and Willow Green Ark (all pieces 2004). In Tanit, a red pyramid topped with a bar and a circle takes on the shape of a human being--or rather, the iconic figure ancient mariners used to protect their vessels as they plied the Mediterranean. Alluding to more modern means of sea travel, the bright red Canned Fish and its larger twin, Cobalt Blue Canned Fish, both of which depict a finlike shape rising from a rough half-circle, each suggest a porpoise flipper seen through the porthole of an ocean liner.

Not every piece in the show went down to the sea in ships. The chartreuse-colored Citron Yella brought to mind a lime wedge, perhaps for that refreshing poolside gin and tonic, while the ocher-hued Silence--shaped like the body of a guitar--seemed to depict an instrument upon which one could never make a melody. Rather, the artist seems to say, the music is in the whimsy and joy of the works themselves.

Unlike much contemporary sculpture, which seeks to overwhelm the viewer with size, complexity or sheer messiness, Amato likes things human-scale, simple and sleek. Most of these sculptures are less than 2 feet on a side, with the largest--Cobalt Blue Canned Fish--measuring 48 by 48 by 7 inches. One shouldn't write him oft as a lightweight formalist, however: with his choice of subject matter, the sculptor clearly aims at some elemental themes. It is to his credit that he declines to overburden the works with meaning, leaving us instead with flashes of wit as quick as the splash of a fin and the glitter of water droplets dancing in air.

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