Utopian Hideaways for the Jet-Setter
New works by Melissa Loop
October 6th through Saturday, October 29th
VIEW THE ENTIRE SHOW HERE
Minneapolis-based artist Melissa Loop exhibits works exploring the concept of Utopia and how it manifests as the exploitation and/or control of people, places and resources. Drawing from Frederick Jameson’s “Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions”, Loop paints given the conclusion that a Utopia is also an impossibility. Existing outside the realm of possible things, the work takes on a fantastic style rich in allusions to the primarily colored languages of printed advertisement, the slick, hyper-colored quality of video games, and the chromatic vulgarity seen in animation.
Loop invites the viewer to explore lush terrains replete with water-parks, air-conditioned mega-structures, and malls that are also churches all existing somewhere between abstraction and landscape. One is reminded of anomalies such as Disneyland, Dubai and the Las Vegas strip in all their artificial glory; manmade fantasies in both the real and digital world.
From Loop’s artist statement: “The paintings go in and out of flatness, abstract shapes jet out from behind buildings, landscapes become jumbled shapes, neon rainbows overwhelm the sky, and patterned borders stand in place of advertisement text. This use of patterns, overlapping forms, and dripping paint emphasizes the flatness and abstraction of the image so that the paintings call attention to their own artificiality. These paintings act as metaphors for our simulations of natural habitats, social structures, and consumerist environments.”
BIO: Melissa Loop received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2005 and has exhibited extensively since. Her work has been featured in DMAG, Buenos Aires #12 and in New American Paintings, Midwest Edition #89.
