Last Chance

Catch it or Regret It

by Holly Otterbein

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Published: Nov 14, 2007

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Philly artist Dominic Episcopo photographs American states carved out of porterhouse, sirloin and rib-eye steaks. While these pieces effectively poke fun at our nation's fatty diets, Episcopo's series of an abandoned Fairmount candy shop and Polaroids of road-trip destinations are his strongest works. Mirror Room captures a stained yellow wall adorned with a child's crayon drawings, leaving us curious about the sweet-toothed shoppers of days past.

With a hook and thread, Emily Barletta constructs a knitted representation of organs, blood cells and veins. But through the use of warm colors and shiny beads, Barletta manages to make our innards resemble flowers and vegetables. In Flesh Spot (pictured), pink rings of yarn symbolize open wounds, but the piece looks more like an underwater creature than broken skin. The title, "My Biology," is no misprint — Barletta suffers from a spinal disease, making the beautiful sores therapeutic in nature.

Four artists respond to a concept any cab-hailer knows well: the gesture. But you probably won't pick out individual hands or faces in these abstract paintings. Michel-Damini Celebre's Arc, which features the thick black strokes of Japanese calligraphy, resembles an arm raised violently upward. In John Rosis' Ebb, maroon and lavender shapes brush up against each other like shoulders in a crowded room.

 

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