Last Chance

by Monica Weymouth

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Jill Maio uses wood salvaged from renovated and destroyed houses to create messy, textured mixed-media sculpture. Small splintered scraps form intricate pinwheel structures, varnish dripping from the imperfect seams. Bright blue, cream and green pieces stick out here and there in the umbrellalike forms, loose paint chips slipping through the cracks.

With stone, concrete and plaster, Ava Blitz's sculpture explores the effects of light on different shapes and surfaces. Soft curves and branches cast faint shadows across the shimmery limestone surface of Stone Trees, while the etchings of Tundra are barely visible in the dark, smoky concrete. In Bird in Flight, shallow valleys wind through the muted oranges and yellows of waxy soapstone.

Hitoshi Nakazato, a longtime printmaker and curator at UPenn's Arthur Ross Gallery, uses a variety of materials and printmaking techniques but always features the same basic lines and shapes. In one series, beige strokes of wax crayon interrupt the black background of several aquatint prints. In another, colorful triangles and squares scatter across sparkling, textured sand prints.