Atlantic Works Gallery held its Third Thursday Reception for exhibitions, “Summer,” featuring Christine Palamidessi, and “A Blinding Flash of Light,” featuring Charlene Liska, on June 15.
“Summer” displays 37 miniature one-piece swimsuit sculptures that are humorous, fantastical, and culturally-inspired. The pieces were created using molded paper soaked in a hardening agent that Palamidessi treated with plaster before painting with gouache.
Each swimsuit represents a beach that she and her daughter have visited. Palamidessi’s Martha’s Vinyard sculpture is adorned with grapes, her Goa-Arambol (India) swimsuit is cross-legged with green eyes and a bindi, a Ventura Beach (CA) piece is decorated with strawberries, and the Wells Beach (MA) swimsuit has dots symbolizing the bioluminescent creatures that can be seen at night.
“I follow the female form through time and history, and the different ways the female form is looked at,” explained Palamidessi. “A bathing suit is like a torso sculpture.”
June is Palamidessi’s favorite month, when she spends nearly every summer at her studio in Puglia, Italy. She feels that “Summer” is her most light-hearted show in the past decade. Black and white photographs illustrate leisurely joys in the seaside town of Otranto – families lounging on Concrete Beach in the day, and eating gelato in the evening.
“It’s where I live, where I work, and the town itself,” Palamidessi described. “It’s the eastern-most point in Italy. You can see Albania on a good day. It’s the most un-black and white place I’ve ever been to, so I use black and white to show a particular mood.”
Liska’s “A Blinding Flash of Light” explores the artist’s lifelong experiences with epilepsy. Liska was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 12, and describes the neurological disorder as a “chronic, disastrous illness” that is titillating and scary.”
Mixed media and videos illustrate epilepsy through shards of color and poetic intrusions of illumination, representing the flickering lights that induce seizures.
“I am drawn to flashing lights,” said Liska, who enjoyed disco parties that induced three seizures one fall in the 1970s, more than she has ever experienced.
Perky and vivacious Liska shared that she spent 55 years keeping her epilepsy a secret because she feared that companies would not hire her, and found that insurance healthcare plans would not accept her. It was damaging.
“I’ve had a lot of help from loved ones,” said Liska, who studied medieval literature. “I’ve pulled success and happiness out of it. It was kind of a gift. I see things differently.” View “A Blinding Flash of Light” and “Summer” at the Atlantic Works Gallery, 80 Border Street, through June 30. Gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays 2-6 p.m.