Other-Worldly/Strange Beauty
Laura Powell & Justin DeMattico

Other-Wordly/ Strange Beauty is a thesis exhibition by Savannah College of Art and Design M.F.A. candidates Justin DeMattico and Laura Powell. Other-Wordly by DeMattico is a collage inspired body of work consisting of colorful paintings. Justin’s believes, our current world is too full of hatred, judgment and lack of empathy for others. His body of work aims to create worlds where our reality’s negative norms don’t apply, his painted worlds have the openness of dreams, feeling familiar but detached from negative realities. In these created worlds, people are accepted as they come. Strange Beauty by Laura Powell acts as a cultural critique of idealized contemporary beauty standards. It demonstrates a reclamation of the body by painting shocking and uncomfortable visual representations to incite the notion of abjection in audiences. Laura uses motifs such as life and death, or hideousness and beauty in combination to produce terrifying consequences that will provoke intrigue.

About the Artists: 

Laura Powell and Justin DeMattico are working artists living in New Jersey. Currently Painting M.F.A. candidate’s at the Savannah College of Art and Design, they plan to graduate in Spring of 2022 after completing their thesis exhibition. Laura’s prior education includes an Art History M.A. from Azusa Pacific University and an Art Education B.F.A. from Long Island University. Laura has been a high school educator for seven years, teaching drawing, painting, animation and graphics classes. Justin graduated from Monmouth University with a B.A. in Studio Art. He also has a background in Digital Filmmaking with screening in several film festivals including the 41st Annual New Jersey Young Filmmakers for which he won second place for a collaborative piece entitled American Dream.

For more information on Laura and her work visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

For more information on Justin and his work visit his website and follow him on Instagram.