ARTnews: K.C. Joseph—Gall

Imagine that you wake from surgery, and your doctor hands you a portrait of the gallbladder that was just removed from you. In the photograph, your gallbladder is about to be eaten by a pelican, stacked on tomatoes. It’s a gift, made out to you in swirling calligraphy.

Hundreds of people in the town of St. Marys, Pennsylvania, had something close to this experience. K. C. Joseph, an Indian American surgeon, spent 15 years making surreal art with his patients’ organs, and now, a selection of which are now on view at Soloway Gallery in Williamsburg.

“He gave me a box of these in 2010 and said ‘Make me a famous artist,'” recalled Melissa Joseph, the surgeon’s daughter and the curator of the Soloway Gallery show. “I was like, ‘These are weird,’ and then I put them under my bed for 10 years.”

Shanti Escalante-De Mattei on K.C. Joseph’s Gall.