Stefania Di Marco

Like forensic detail shots from a crime scene, Stefania Di Marco’s vivid frameless photographs of hair draped on snow or suspended in liquid show only part of a story. In some, flowers add further mystery to scenes hinting at death. The contrast between three bloodred blossoms and a shock of dark hair against a background of pure white bubbling milk creates a riveting tension between the suggestion of foul play and a striking, ominous beauty (Ibiscus, 2004). The thirty-year-old Turin-based artist says she is attempting to “deromanticize and yet glamorize death” in this series. Another series in

picks June 04, 2004

Peter Flaccus

Shortly after arriving in Italy eleven years ago, American painter Peter Flaccus abandoned oil paint and began using encaustic to form his gestural imagery on wood. Although Flaccus describes his new work as a natural evolution, visually it is a distinct departure from the pale and delicate palette of his previous encaustic experiments with transparency and opacity, and with the natural tones of wax and wood. His current, more dynamic experiments in color combination, as well as a completely different method of handling the encaustic, appear as silent explosions of celestial orbs with delicate