The Big Dig: Celeste Rapone

Press Release

To view The Big Dig: Celeste Rapone, click this link.

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents Celeste Rapone, the fourth installment of our ongoing online exhibition series The Big Dig.

Centered on four figurative paintings that Rapone started before the beginning of the shelter-in-place and finished under the new normal of COVID, this Big Dig features an in-depth interview with the artist about her studio practice, situating her work in the context of her New Jersey background and her interest in the narrative activity of what Susan Sontag called "sensuous elaboration." Rapone has recently been the subject of a one-person show at Josh Lilley Gallery in London. An interview with her appears in the current edition of Femme Art Review and her work was featured inside and on the cover of the latest New American Paintings.

Born of nerdy fascination, each edition of The Big Dig descends into the rabbit-hole of a tight curatorial concept, excavating a body of work, a thematic idea or a particular medium, a new development or a historical moment. Exclusive images, interviews and essays provide works the kind of rich sense of context that ethnographers refer to as "thick description."

Artist Page