Skull, bone and skeleton sculptures are now on display in Delco

Socrates is said to have said that philosophy ‘is about nothing but dying and being dead’.

Ancient monks kept skulls on their desks to remember their mortality, and former Misfits singer Glenn Danzig kept it simple when he sang, “I want your skulls.” I’m right there with them, a horror enthusiast and skull tattoo collector who dressed up as the “skeleton of the banquet” at Burning Man and generally confused everyone I met there.

So when I discovered that Pennsylvania tattoo artist Michael J. Kelly’s bold skull/skeleton/grim reaper paintings and drawings would be featured at a show in Delaware County called “Skulls 2024,” I rushed to the Aston Mills Arts- gallery in a reclaimed historic building. mill for a short tour.

The exhibition, which runs until November 3, features sculptures of skulls, bones and skeletons, paintings, drawings and ‘assemblage’. Veronica Batter, artist and president of Aston Mills Arts, said the holidays were a catalyst for the show.

“Halloween is obviously a good time to do this,” Batter said at the gallery on Tuesday. “There are many ways people can approach an exhibition like this, whether it’s serious or a bit tongue-in-cheek, like the dancing skeletons. It’s about confronting your own mortality, but it doesn’t have to be in a negative way.”

Last year the gallery organized an exhibition called ‘100 Skulls’.

Friday evening, Philadelphia author Josh Hitchens will perform “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” in the gallery, with refreshments. Tickets for that event cost $32.64 and are available here.

The gallery is open to the public free of charge on Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm to 4pm and is located at 3100 Mount Rd 2nd Floor, Aston, PA 19014.