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David Curcio: needle point

By GREG COOK  |  November 21, 2012

davidcurcio_needlepoint

"This show is about as personal as I can be without sitting down and telling the story," David Curcio says of his ruefully titled exhibit "I Wouldn't Worry About It."

His folksy drawing-and-embroidery What Will Survive of Us Is Nothing shows a man and woman in 19th-century garb crying, surrounded by a border of animal traps, shackles, knives, flaming lighters, and pills arranged like flowers. More Than You Know offers decorative patterns of pills that frame a heart, a woman's reproductive system, and women's butts. Script across the bottom reads, "Before I go I need to be something more than skin & bones, you see."

The 40-year-old Watertown artist's delicate, endearing pictures are like scratched-out diaries of a heart laid bare. His symbols — pills, razor blades, tears, flowers, Abraham Lincoln, scantily clad ladies — channel his losses over the past year or so: divorce, having to sell his home and close his Ningyo Editions gallery.

"The show's about [antidepressant] drugs. The show's about depression. The show's about self-loathing. The show's about sex," Curcio says. "It's a way of making something beautiful out of something awful."

"DAVID CURCIO: I WOULDN'T WORRY ABOUT IT":: Laconia Gallery, 433 Harrison Ave, Boston :: Through January 13

  Topics: Museum And Gallery , Laconia Gallery, Art, David Curcio
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