WEST PHILADELPHIA
Jennifer Williams University City Arts League, 4226 Spruce St. Have your mind blown by massive photographic collage installations, where photography meets sculpture. Speaking to the grimiest elements of urban environments, Williams shows audiences how a pile of dirty garbage can be arranged into a beautifully escalating masterpiece.
Maggie Mills 506 S. 45th St. Attention Freudian freaks! Lose yourself in a Dali–inspired trance as you stare into the dreamy juxtapositions of Mills’s work. She plays with realistic figures but depicts them against simplified, sometimes graphic, backgrounds. Each painting tells the story of an individual lost in a subconscious world.
Green Line Café 4239 Baltimore Ave. Not down to trek over to a bunch of studios? Check out Green Line Café, where you can grab some coffee, sit down and peruse a book next to the garden and look at various contemporary Philadelphian artworks exhibited right inside. The only thing better than free art is free art and caffeine.
CENTER CITY WEST
Kimberly Witham Center for Emerging Visual Arts, 237 S. 18th St.,The Barclay, 3rd floor Remember that time you ran over a squirrel and kept driving? Through her carefully composed photographs, Witham captures provocatively witty and whimsical arrangements of domestic objects with the fuzzy little creatures that suburbia so often kills. The photograph of a dead mouse lying next to pristinely white china will bring tears to your eyes, reminding you of the fact that you are indeed a heartless murderer. We’re calling PETA.
Ted Mosher Octo Studio Building, 2202 Alter St. Cezanne may have been the first to systematize landscape into simple geometries and colors, but Moscher takes abstraction to a new level. He constructs landscapes that resemble entirely different objects. Don’t miss this unique twist on genre painting, and let us know if you saw the magical ponies in the paintings too…
