Throughout the month of August, visiting the Philadelphia Sculpture Gym is a real relief. Literally, though. At this Knight Arts grantee, artist Jedediah Morfit is showcasing his talents in relief sculpture with his solo show “flat as hell.” Morfit was selected through the Sculpture Gym’s partnership with Emerging International Xchange, a group dedicated to helping emerging artists and curators to exhibit internationally.

Jedediah Morfit, “Self Portrait, With Ambition.”

Although the exhibit explicitly indicates its own flatness, the whitish textures of Morfit’s urethane plastic creations are detailed and precise, despite one side existing in a flat, wall-mountable plane. These forms appear embedded in their frames, or the walls themselves, and their often surreal depictions add to their ghostly hue and half-formed appearance. Residing between 2D and 3D, they also straddle the line between supernatural and realistic in a boundary breaking limbo.

Some of the pieces are standalone, individual forms like “Self Portrait, With Ambition.” Here, a nearly life-size figure crouches along the side of the room, an animal fur covering his back, and an armored helmet wholly obscuring his face. He wields a bow and arrows in his hands, apparently stalking some unseen prey with – as the title makes clear – a strong ambition and focused calmness. In a slight twist from the otherwise warrior-like attire of this character, he wears only flip-flops on his feet, perhaps the least useful running-and-stalking footwear imaginable.

Jedediah Morfit, “Ad Infinitum.”

Elsewhere Morfit includes montages of tinier forms, some of which include magnets so that visitors may move and reassemble the images into their own bizarre narratives. Some of these montages, however, are assembled by the artist ahead of time in a static form. “Ad Infinitum” is a nearly symmetrical, mandala-like arrangement in which a series of winged gorillas carry pigs in a spiraling, maddening ascent into unreal territory. Mingling with shopping carts, human bones, bottles, tools and other telltale signs of human habitation, these flying primates hearken to The Wizard of Oz while also breaking straight through the old saying ‘when pigs fly.’ While the pigs themselves are seemingly incapable of flight, their airborne comrades lift them high up above the din of the human world, effectively thumbing their noses at our chaotic lifestyle.

Jedediah Morfit, “Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The Fire (High Contrast Remix #1-6).”

Morfit also provides a series of high contrast, black and white plates which offer snippets of scenes that are mostly indistinguishable due to the overlaid black shapes. An eye here, maybe a hand there… is that a dragon beneath the oil slick of dark plaster? The artist silently evades definition by titling the work merely “Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The Fire (High Contrast Remix #1-6).” A series of rabbits in hanging boxes, and even a bracelet, round out the show with a sort of criticism of romanticism. The rodent sits, in every image, just about to be struck by flying arrows. Whether these are Cupid’s or a hunter’s is unclear, but the series’ title “You And Your Romantic Notions” lends itself to ideas of breeding (as rabbits are often wont to do), death, and the inescapable instabilities of both biology and time.

Visually stunning and conceptually meandering Jedediah Morfit provides a remixed and remixable assortment of objects, characters and forms through a medium not often embraced in contemporary art. His relief sculptures are well-crafted and recognizable, but also laden with symbolism that vexes and encourages viewers to reach their own conclusions.

Philadelphia Sculpture Gym is located at 1834 East Frankford Ave., Philadelphia; [email protected]; philadelphiasculpturegym.com.