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    Bees and Irridescent Bubbles Infiltrate Still-Life Traditions in Marc Dennis’ Paintings

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    Detail of “Happily Ever After” (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 57.25 inches. All images courtesy of Harper’s, New York, shared with permisison

    Bees and Irridescent Bubbles Infiltrate Still-Life Traditions in Marc Dennis’ Paintings

    February 7, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    During the Dutch Golden Age, vanitas grew in popularity as a genre of memento mori that emphasized life’s transience. The opulent paintings were steeped in symbolism and foregrounded the futility of ambition and worldly pleasures.

    Marc Dennis draws on this 17th-century tradition as he refashions the still life for a contemporary audience. In a recent oil painting, “Happily Ever After,” hordes of honeybees and hornets descend on a lush bouquet. Kaleidoscopic bubbles float across the five-foot canvas, reflecting the surrounding colors and distorting clear viewers of nearby flowers and fruit.

    “Happily Ever After” (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 57.25 inches

    The insects and glossy orbs add another layer of impermanence to the already fleeting imagery, while also reflecting on the tenuous relationship between the organic and human-made. Similar tensions appear in “Allegory of the Readymade,” which suffocates and warps a seemingly vibrant painting with thick layers of plastic wrap. Each of the works clings to a brief moment in time, capturing both life at its prime and serving as a bold reminder of its inevitable end.

    Dennis’ paintings are on view in I’m Happy You’re Here through March 1 at Harper’s Gallery in New York. Find more from the artist on Instagram.

    “Based on a True Story” (2024), oil on linen, 70.75 x 55 inches

    Detail of “Based on a True Story” (2024), oil on linen, 70.75 x 55 inches

    “Superstar” (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 55 inches

    “Portrait of the Artist as a Juvenile Delinquent” (2024), oil on linen, 72 x 58 inches

    “Allegory of the Readymade” (2024), oil on linen, 48.75 x 37 inches

    “Giotto’s Fly” (2024), oil on linen, 72.5 x 96 inches

    “Dracula” (2024), oil on linen, 71.5 x 56 in

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    • 188 Shares190 Views

      in Art

      In London, an Enormous Exhibition of 500+ Works Roots Out the Creative Seeds of Flowers

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      Rebecca Louise Law, “Calyx” (2023). Image courtesy of the artist

      In London, an Enormous Exhibition of 500+ Works Roots Out the Creative Seeds of Flowers

      January 29, 2025

      ArtNaturePhotography

      Grace Ebert

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      In nature, flowers serve as an essential component of the reproduction process. But for humans, scented blooms are ripe with myriad meanings and symbolism that transcend their biological functions.

      During Victorian times, offering a bouquet to someone with your right hand indicated a non-verbal “yes,” while a yellow carnation would reject an admirer. Similarly in art history, wilting flowers rendered as a momento mori remind us of death’s inevitability, and for van Gogh, sunflowers were the perfect stand-in for gratitude.

      Aimée Hoving, “Compost” (2019). Image © Aimee Hoving, flowers by Brigitte Gentis van Dam Merrett

      A massive exhibition opening next month at Saatchi Gallery cultivates a vast repertoire of works that explores how blooms have become an omnipresent entity in human life and creativity. Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture brings together more than 500 photographs, installations, sculptures, archival pieces, and other objects to create a rich landscape spanning millennia.

      Anchoring the exhibition is an expansive and immersive work of 100,000-plus dried flowers by Rebecca Louise Law. Smaller pieces include Xuebing Du’s ethereal photos of flowers in natural light, VOYDER’s streaky steam-laden compositions, and lush, vibrant gardens by Faye Bridgewater.

      Opening in time to usher in spring in London, Flowers runs from February 12 to May 5.

      VOYDER, “In Love with the Idea of You” (2024). Image courtesy of the artist

      Kasia Wozniak, “Anemoia #7.” Image courtesy of the artist

      Sandra Kantanen, “Still Life (Flowers I).” Image courtesy the artist and Purdy Hicks Gallery

      Xuebing Du, “Mother of Pearl” (2018). Image courtesy of the artist

      Carmen Mitrotta, “Geometric Leaves.” Image courtesy the artist

      Faye Bridgewater, “En Masse” (2025). Image courtesy of the artist

      Ann von Freyburg, “Floral Arrangement 1 (After Jan van Huysum, Still Life).” Image courtesy of the artist

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    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Art

      Psychedelic Distortions and Glitches Streak Across Alexis Mata’s Bold Paintings

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      All images courtesy of Alexis Mata and The Hole, shared with permission

      Psychedelic Distortions and Glitches Streak Across Alexis Mata’s Bold Paintings

      December 20, 2024

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      From digital glitches to mind-bending distortions, Mexico City-based artist Alexis Mata is interested in how visual information gets lost or skewed as it shifts from one context to another. In his oil paintings, bouquets and vast desert landscapes spread across the canvas as if melting or stretching into unrecognizable forms. “When your eyes look too long at the same thing, your mind makes the change,” he shares.

      Mata excavates the relationship between analog and digital realms, and his process incorporates both modes of artmaking. Preliminary sketches fill notebooks that travel everywhere the artist does, while he continually snaps photos and records video as references.

      AI experiments help Mata better translate the strange, disorienting outcomes that these rapidly evolving tools can produce. But his research isn’t just visual. “I enjoy experimenting by writing poems or haikus in AI and seeing what emerges. It’s an exploratory process,” he notes.

      Rendered in bold color palettes, the trippy paintings draw connections between digital mishaps and the ways our brains warp an image, whether in moments of intense focus, dream states, or with the help of hallucinatory substances. “I like to think that entire worlds are created within dreams, and these worlds ask to be brought into the light,” he says.

      Many of the paintings shown here are on view in Fata Morgana through January 25 at The Hole in Tribeca. Explore more of Mata’s work, which spans stained glass and textiles to drawing and sculpture, on his website and Instagram.

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