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&ldquo;Just stay calm. It will go away.&rdquo;
				Hazleton artist Christina Galbiati took those words, which President Donald Trump said earlier this year about the coronavirus, placed them against a vivid red and yellow background that spirals into a pit, and called the resulting artwork &ldquo;Liar, Liar.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;Words matter,&rdquo; she said in a recent telephone interview, days before an exhibit called &ldquo;Fortitude,&rdquo; which will feature her work and the work of three other artists, is set to open at the Artists For Art Gallery in Scranton.
				&ldquo;In this digital age I feel a sense of urgency to create a tangible record of words,&rdquo; she said, explaining she does that by photocopying them in different fonts and making collages.
				&ldquo;Sometimes I take a stance; sometimes I&rsquo;m more left leaning,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Sometimes it&rsquo;s a question I&rsquo;m posing; my intention is to invite the viewer to question the topic.&rdquo;
				For a large-scale, 40 x 40-inch piece called &ldquo;We Shall Overcome,&rdquo; she explained, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pulling words from the internet and I&rsquo;m repeating them. My goal is to highlight all the words that our president has said.&rdquo;
				Yes, this time she&rsquo;s taking a stance.
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s ugly, it&rsquo;s chaotic and it&rsquo;s representative of all that we&rsquo;ve been going through,&rdquo; she described the piece, which includes various headlines, sentence fragments and phrases people will probably recognize, among them &ldquo;a very stable genius,&rdquo; &ldquo;drain the (swamp)&rdquo; and &ldquo;(gra)b &lsquo;em by the pussy.&rdquo;
				Few would argue that last comment reflects a lack of respect for women, a sentiment against which artist H. W. Yorkonis of Avoca takes aim in pieces called &ldquo;Resist&rdquo; and &ldquo;Rape CULTure.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;I really fight for women&rsquo;s rights,&rdquo; saidYorkonis, whose work will also be part of the &ldquo;Fortitude&rdquo; exhibit. &ldquo;Sometimes I feel I have a difficult time talking about them, but I can paint about them and talk about the paintings, and that makes it easier.&rdquo;
				Among the pieces she will display at the exhibit are &ldquo;Resist,&rdquo; a mixed media piece that depicts &ldquo;a Woman Warrior; she&rsquo;s a survivor of domestic abuse and she&rsquo;s here to fight for other people who are abused,&rdquo; the artist said.
				In the piece she calls &ldquo;Rape CULTure,&rdquo; Yorkonis said, &ldquo;there are two women, and they&rsquo;re hung by different items. One has a mirror over her face so you can see yourself in it, knowing you&rsquo;re part of the culture. We&rsquo;re all affected by it. Whether we&rsquo;re victimized or not, chances are we know someone who has been.&rdquo;
				Two other pieces, called &ldquo;Isolation&rdquo; and &ldquo;Contact&rdquo; are paintings Yorkonis was inspired to create this spring, when she missed spending time with friends and family, made do with a &ldquo;Zoom Easter&rdquo; and longed to visit New York City.
				&rdquo; &lsquo;Isolation&rsquo; is a very large painting, 36 x 36,&rdquo; she said. When you see it, your eyes will be drawn to a diagonal line. Under the line, in the backdrop are pictures of city streets and city blocks, park benches. I really wanted to go to the city, I was literally planning to go to New York City when the lockdown started. I havn&rsquo;t been there since the virus hit.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;But there&rsquo;s a little corner of the painting where the green and beige represent nature and outside. It&rsquo;s when they started to say, &lsquo;Oh, you can go for walks.&rsquo; You can see a glimmer of hope i;n that corner of the painting.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;Contact,&rdquo; which Yorkonis has paired with &ldquo;Isolation,&rdquo; is a painting she describes as &ldquo;a little bit brighter&rdquo; with red orange representing &ldquo;the warmth and light of wanting to be with your family&rdquo; and turquoise representing the safety of being inside.
				Rounding out the works in the &ldquo;Fortitude&rdquo; show are Monica Noelle (sorry; we weren&rsquo;t able to reach her for an interview) and Brandi Merolla.
				Merolla, who lives just 15 miles from Honesdale in Narrowsburg, N.Y., is no stranger to controversial subjects &mdash; she describes being taken to marches and protests in New York City and Washington, D.C. as a child, and her &ldquo;frack art&rdquo; has been shown around the world &mdash; but she&rsquo;s bringing something she sees as purely fun to Scranton.
				&ldquo;I have taken traditional tattoo designs from the 1940s and older and blew them up, large scale,&rdquo; she said, explaining how displaying them on Fome-Cor material makes them three-dimensional. &ldquo;The originals are typically about 2 inches tall, and I go up to 4 feet.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a big fan of traditional tattoos,&rdquo; she said, describing some of the categories as romantic imagery, patriotic imagery, animals, nautical and religious symbols and even early Pop-Eye cartoons.
				&ldquo;I love the purity of the art form; it&rsquo;s like folk art, and folk art speaks for itself. It&rsquo;s very basic and pure,&rdquo; she said, adding she has &ldquo;a moderate amount, not head to toe&rdquo; of tattoos on her own body.
				<ins>An opening reception for the &ldquo;Fortitude&rdquo; exhibit is planned for 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, at the Artists for Art Gallery, 101 Penn Ave., Scranton. The exhibit will remain on display through Oct. 31. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. </ins>

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Taking a stand, protesting, and just having fun