Tasteful Yet Biting

Opening reception. Tasteful Yet Biting Sean Fader Jennifer Zaylea Evi Numen Chad States Joe Ovelman Curated by Kim Brickley Friday, February 12, 5-8 pm Tasteful Yet Biting is composed of Philadelphia and New York artists who deal with issues that either subtly touch upon or directly tackle current American LBGTQ culture. The work selected grapples with a wide range of emotions and ideas. Ideas such as mental health, mental states, public and private space, the veiled interaction that portraiture implies and demands, self identity, the wide spectrum that lies between the familial and the familiar, and how that relates to the larger concept of community. A certain aspect of trust underlies all of this work. The documentation of the space of a troubled mind, the video recording of a painful breakup, some one being photographed after an intense sexual experience. The trust required to kneel in front of a stranger in a public space and allow it to be documented. A father who allows his son to record his older, scarred, and almost naked body, only to be adorned with the artist’s own head in a hybrid family portrait. No one did this work alone, and all of it is very personal. The formal approach employed by each artist make the work alluring, and invite you further into a world you may not be familiar with, or perhaps already are. These are difficult subjects. Emotional subjects. They draw the viewer in and keep them there and share a story. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes is tragic, but any initial part of the concept that you may find shocking, uncomfortable, or disheartening, is deliberately cushioned by the skilled way that each artist has expressed it. But then again, isn't that what good art is often supposed to do?