“Unlike most artists who find out their exhibition date has been moved up five months, Philadelphia-based artist Matthew Sepielli was delighted: “I like the idea of it being a quiet show,” he says, referring to the exhibit’s tenure in the February drab. Like the winter months themselves, Sepielli’s exhibition of 10 paintings sculpted from white plaster will be dimly lit. Depending on the time of day or night, viewers will peer at these panels with little more than the aid of a single lamp. A looped video of a nighttime walk through a forest echoes the exquisite isolation evoked in the text from which Sepielli’s show takes its cue. Looking to Raymond Carver’s iconic short story, Cathedral (as well as Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows), Sepielli carved a single cathedral window into the plaster surface of each painting and hung the panels at a height and distance that suggests a cathedral’s nave. Contemplating these elliptical panels in the winter half-light, you may just notice a single orb making its slow ascent over the snowy surface of the plaster. Like Carver’s story, Sepielli’s Cathedral suggests that after all is said and done, there may be a glimmer of hope.”
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