Unspoken Language of Colors

Pentimenti is pleased to present Unspoken Language of Colors, a group exhibition featuring works by Sarah Amos, Matthew Colaizzo, Claire Downes Whitehurst, and Jacob Feige.

This exhibition focuses on the quiet, evocative power of color and its ability to communicate without words. In our everyday lives, color shapes our emotions, memories, and perceptions. In Unspoken Language of Colors, each artist engages with color in a way that reflects their individual perspective and values. Pentimenti invites you to look deeper and to consider not only what color is, but also the stories it tells through your own lens and lived experiences.

SARAH AMOS

Sarah Amos creates large-scale artworks that incorporate fiber, as well as smaller works on paper. Her towering, symbolic imagery draws influence from Aboriginal art and patterning, while also exploring memory and emotion to evoke psychological landscapes that are both personal and collective. These varied elements are refined into bold, abstract shapes and vibrant colors.
The painting on view, rendered in a striking palette of blues, browns, and beige, is mounted on a large, custom-made structure, giving it a presence that seems to hover between two and three dimensions. This exhibition also presents two works on paper from her ZA Series, where monochromatic subtleties meet the intensity of vivid colors in striking harmony. Amos employs both historical and contemporary techniques to create her work, striving to uncover hidden dimensions of our connection with the natural world.

MATTHEW COLAIZZO

Matthew Colaizzo’s work explores the tension between built environments and the barriers that define or enclose them. He invites viewers to see the frame either as a window or as a stage set for unfolding drama. Each brick drawn has its own dimensional presence and color, shaping the viewer’s perception and guiding them into a constructed atmosphere. Employing manual drafting techniques, Colaizzo paints with a small brush, transforming the act into a meditative process rooted in repetition and centered on ideas of the grid, color, and space.

CLAIRE DOWNES WHITEHURST 

Claire Downes Whitehurst uses color as both material and metaphor, a sensory language shaped by synesthetic perception. Influenced by religious ornamentation, stained glass, and architectural decoration, her work channels color as a vessel for memory, emotion, and spiritual resonance.
Her ceramics and works on paper incorporate floral imagery to explore the intricate passageways linking the human body, political body, and plant body, each governed by distinct yet interconnected systems of growth, balance, and healing. Her practice unfolds like a map, tracing subtle connections between the somatic and the sacred, weaving together intimate personal experience with broader collective embodiment.

JACOB FEIGE 

Jacob Feige’s paintings, including free-standing works, explore the tension between anonymity and individuality in the 21st century, reinterpreting the notion of lost identity in an era shaped by technology.

Vermilion Monuments is a series of double-sided, free-standing paintings ranging in scale from small to large. On one side, Feige paints with vermilion red, a reference to the cover of J.G. Ballard’s science fiction short story collection Vermilion Sands. Both sides feature the same schematic portrait, an anonymous figure depicted from both a frontal and side view. On the reverse side, precise cut-outs are mounted over two central portraits, obscured by layers of vibrant colors that enhance depth and create a dynamic interplay of dimension.

For all inquiries, please contact us at mail@pentimenti.com or +1 215.625.9990.

Free and open to the public.

ADDITIONAL EVENT: PHILADELPHIA OLD CITY GALLERY WALK | Friday, October 3 | 5 - 8 PM.

Hours: Tuesday – Friday 10 AM – 5 PM, Saturday 12 PM – 5 PM, or by appointment.