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Melissa Furness
Melancholy and Its Antidote

2022

$14,500
£10,830.81
€12,556.59
CA$20,132.89
A$22,566.37
CHF 11,749.65
MX$275,545.10
NOK 149,177.86
SEK 141,407.19
DKK 93,685.78
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About the Item

Decorative, dense tangles of weeds and overgrowth serve as metaphors for personal habits and behaviors we’d like to eliminate. Like garden weeds, these behaviors can be invasive, even if we attempt to prune. This cycle is represented by the painting's all-over, patterned surface which make it difficult to tease out which botanicals (or habits) are friend or foe. Who is to judge what is considered a weed or not? Created during the pandemic, this body of work reflects the angst the artist detected in her art students as well as society during a moment when growth as we knew it paused and we awakened to social as well as personal ills. Thoughts and behaviors overtook us and pervaded our minds like weeds. Vices and virtues began inhabiting our mental space like the tiny, fairy-like figures who play out across her dense thickets, suggesting narratives which question human impulses and how we define identity, gender, sexuality, and fantasy. These "grotesques" are borrowed from Melissa's travels to Italy where she visited Nero's extravagant Golden House as well as other grottoes and palaces for inspiration.
  • Creator:
    Melissa Furness (American)
  • Creation Year:
    2022
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 71 in (180.34 cm)Width: 59 in (149.86 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Denver, CO
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1387211031272

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