David Gilhooly, the renowned co-founder of the Funk Ceramics genre, is an original artist – again. He started painting in 2002, little paintings dominated by assemblages.

Over time, the objects added to the painted surface have disappeared into the paint, submerged yet visible, barely discernible when photographed back into two dimensions.

This new body of work is presented in “David Gilhooly: Recent Work” at the Peninsula Museum of Art, through March 27.

“I use old plastic decorative art from the mid-seventies which at the time were very popular. They covered people’s walls along with those awful brass plates made in England and, of course, resin grapes”, Gilhooly explained. “I have been hard at work burying them in paint.

“I use Sherwin Williams satin interior house paint in only the basic colors. I never mix the paint nor use brushes. It is poured on, in various ways. I would hate to touch a brush to it. I pour it on very thick and wiggle it around and then let gravity do its work.”

The exhibition begins with one purely assemblage piece, “Stone Hearts”, and follows up with “Clean Up on Aisle 5”, which has one element separate from and in front of the painted surface. From that point on the richly-hued, viscous paint drips and oozes over and around the objects that Gilhooly has fastened to the panels.

Hearts are a recurring theme, and there are many pairs of paintings: elephants, birds, cowboys, children; and groups of four: ribbons representing gifts, chickens. Eight of the paintings (four pairs) are on paper.

Exhibition curator Jerry Emanuel comments, “There is a mystery to Gilhooly’s technical mastery in controlling the flow application of his pigment. “Paint swirls” are to Gilhooly as “paint spatters” were for Jackson Pollack. Accidental, perhaps, but executed by an experienced artist’s hand that shows great familiarity with ancient scrolls, texts, and icons from the Middle and Far East as well as the Old and New Western Worlds.

“Gilhooly’s color wheel is very personal and uniquely his own,” according to Emanuel. “Familiar objects fill the paintings, but shockingly dressed in Gilhooly’s palette, they are seen as never before.”

Gilhooly earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UC Davis. He taught and exhibited extensively at San Jose State, several universities in Canada, Cal State Sacramento, UC Davis, and finished his academic career at McMinnville College in Oregon.