Herstory - Melissa Furness Solo Exhibition

Showing Through February 24, 2018 In our project space for the month of February: Melissa Furness re-imagines the sublime nature of early Romanticism to present the viewer with overgrown layers of re-appropriated and fragmented images of invented ruins that come together to depict alternative worlds of picturesque decline and the narrative self. Hand-colored post cards, tourist photos, thrift store paintings, paintings within paintings, historical patterns and battle plans, abstraction, and snow globes are integrated and contrasted by actual nature and fake. Referencing late 18th and early 19th century European paintings that laced landscapes with imagery of ancient ruins to evoke the sublime, mysterious, and beautiful. Furness’ work today additionally posits such imagery as a certain species of “kitsch”--his-story. These works take a public and outwardly presented narrative and re-frames it within the realm of the personal, the private, and the individual. Melissa Furness is an Assistant Professor for the Visual Arts at the University of Colorado at Denver and held the post of Assistant Professor of Art at Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Washington for five years, before coming to Colorado. She received an MFA in Painting with honors from the University of Iowa in 2002 with minors in both sculpture and printmaking. Furness is currently featured in the renowned publication “New American Paintings : West #132” and has an ongoing solo exhibition and outdoor installation at the CU South Denver Natural History Museum.