Double stuffed: Mary Kate Maher's 'Untitled (Torsion)' is typical of the quirky art at Vox Populi.

Hair Force

Vox’s provocative art gets to your heart.

by Roberta Fallon

In its third annual emerging artists roundup, Vox Populi continues to be ground zero for ambitious young artists trying out quirky voices. The juried 24-person show “Voxxoxo” is full of solid work, some of it great.

There are darkly humorous works about hair, one very weird stuffed animal with its shiny black butt in the air, and a girl-in-a-bubble performance video that’s a dream. There are also some dead serious and quite amazing paintings, photo-collages, ceramics, sculptures and cut-paper works. This more traditional work demonstrates that young minds are finding ways to imbue old-fashioned art strategies with new zip.

It’s a big show with many artists represented by more than one work. Hair artists Samantha Hill and Felicia Megginson poke fun at our fetishistic devotion to hair and transform the discussion of locks, tresses and manes into one about race, class and gender. New York artist Ellen Gallagher has long used hair to discuss issues of race and identity, and it’s great to see these young artists work the territory in a slightly different way.

Hill’s meat grinder for straightening a frizzy afro into spaghetti ribbons makes you laugh and then blanch as you absorb the loaded social commentary about conformity. Megginson’s series of fanciful hair drawings evokes beauty salon and barbershop signs advertising the latest black hairdos. Her Soul on Ice drawing depicts a mound of sculpted hair with a raised fist in the middle. The references to both Eldridge Cleaver’s book of the same name and imprisoned African-American men are unmistakable.

It’s impossible to give everyone a shout out, but here are a few. Francoise Duresse’s menacing portraits painted over a collage of tiny elementary school student photos are angry beyond anything I’ve seen by a young artist in Philadelphia. The work is ambitious, and its subjects—race, identity and stereotyping (the works evoke mugshots)–are well-played. At the cool end of the spectrum, Jennie Thwing’s video of life seen through a crystal ball is mesmerizing. Amze Emmons’ painted landscapes have a bleached effect and disjointed content that resonate. Erin Arnold’s modernist painting with stripes, pots and plants updates Matisse for the Ikea age. Jaime Treadwell’s hot pink landscapes echo Lisa Yuskavage’s color while avoiding the buxom baggage. Joseph Borelli’s pink carved foam figure, Adam Parker Smith’s embroidered and stitched homage to Marvin Gaye, and Natasha Bowdoin’s cut-paper word piece are virtuosic and thought-provoking.

Philadelphia may no longer be the fifth largest city in the country, but its art scene is top tier. If you see only one show this summer, make this the one.