{"id":15208,"date":"2022-06-13T22:42:37","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T05:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/?p=15208"},"modified":"2022-06-13T22:48:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T05:48:24","slug":"can-you-fear-and-adore-flowers-artist-susan-melly-provides-answers-in-new-work-at-laaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/can-you-fear-and-adore-flowers-artist-susan-melly-provides-answers-in-new-work-at-laaa\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Fear and Adore Flowers? Artist Susan Melly Provides Answers in New Work at LAAA"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Earworm.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15221\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Earworm.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"745\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Earworm.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Earworm-201x300.jpeg 201w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Earworm-129x192.jpeg 129w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0In a way, who isn&#8217;t afraid, just a little bit, of flowers? We may fear their incredible fragility, of losing them to an all-too-quick death, to knowing their perfection is ephemeral and their beauty so temporary &#8211; an aching reminder of our own mortality.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0However, for artist <strong>Susan Melly<\/strong> in her new <em>Emerging Fear of Flowers\u00a0<\/em>now at LAAA &#8216;s Gallery 825 in West Hollywood, her emerging fear was something different, risen from over two years of COVID-19 pandemic isolation. During that time period, Melly&#8217;s husband brought her a weekly bouquet of flowers from an open air market. As her own statement informs viewers &#8220;As my anxiety blossomed, my art making changed and became more abstract and colorful to ward off my dark feelings. Each work is embedded with a hint of humor &#8211; and the number 19 &#8211; as an homage to coping mechanisms, even as familiar sources of comfort counterintuitively transform into a strange beauty that is tinged with the edge of the unknown.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0After about a year of receiving the flowers, despite the loving intention of bringing beauty and romance to her life, she began to ask hereslf if she would be &#8220;condemned&#8221; to receiving the flowers every single Friday for the rest of her life, indicating that the pandemic would never end. The blossoms blossomed &#8211; into increased anxiety, alleviated through her art. As viewers we can witness this progression in her new body of work, and revel in its layers, as fragile-seeming as flowers themselves.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0The works of course make use of Melly&#8217;s signature use of vintage tissue paper dress patterns, something that she terms an &#8220;<span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">integral part of my practice and personal history&#8230;&#8221; As a mixed media artist, the LA-based Melly creates work that includes paintings, assemblage-based sculptures, and installations. In this latest body of work, there is a powerful new energy as these flowers morph with the artist, spin discs on an old Victrola record player, weep, rail in anger, whine in frustration, sing, and seethe.\u00a0 Do flowers mourn their entrapment in bouquets? Do they discuss day to day travails as they grow in the garden, rage and wish to curse those who pick them? While we may never know, here Melly certainly posits that they might.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-Hanging.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15224\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-Hanging.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"838\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-Hanging.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-Hanging-179x300.jpeg 179w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-Hanging-115x192.jpeg 115w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0Within the primarily paint and mixed media on canvas works are a variety of sculptural pieces.\u00a0 While some stand alone, a vintage sewing machine, a male figure bearing flowers, &#8220;Hanging Out,&#8221; is a wall scupture. It emerges like a being encased in and protruding from the wall itself,\u00a0 a partial mannequin entrapped despite a glowing heart and uterus at its center, sheathed and layered with the dress patterns.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15216\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"631\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear-300x189.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear-768x485.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear-648x409.jpeg 648w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Emerging-Fear-304x192.jpeg 304w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0The titular &#8220;Emerging Fear of Flowers&#8221; is a colorful mix of the tissue patterns, acrylic, and art paper on canvas.\u00a0 While a hand holds a cocktail glass in the right corner, center stage is an alien looking three pronged flower that seems to have grown eyes, and one prong is looking and leaning and reaching ominously toward that hand. The viewer can&#8217;t help but think of <em>Little Shop of Horrors <\/em>and Audrey, that musical&#8217;s violently sentient plant.\u00a0 It is a large work, vibrant with indigo and burgandy; the human hand, however, is so white it could easily belong to a person confined from the sunlight in which these flowers gained a robust if menacing vitality.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-CutStems.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15214\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-CutStems.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"668\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-CutStems.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-CutStems-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/melly-CutStems-144x192.jpeg 144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0Melly&#8217;s &#8220;Cut Stems&#8221; also makes use of the tissue dress patterns combined with acrylic.\u00a0 These highly geometric flowers have sharp edged like wind mills and are exhibiting just emerging facial features.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Enter-covid.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15217\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Enter-covid.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"669\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Enter-covid.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Enter-covid-224x300.jpeg 224w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Enter-covid-143x192.jpeg 143w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0With &#8220;Enter Covid,&#8221;\u00a0 what&#8217;s blossoming here appears to be the shape of COVID itself, entering via a kind of conduit into an abstract human vessel.\u00a0 Layers of white on white recall bandages, sheets, and fog, as if a ghostly landscape now enveloped us all.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-EvilFloats.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15218\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-EvilFloats.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"756\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-EvilFloats.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-EvilFloats-198x300.jpeg 198w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-EvilFloats-127x192.jpeg 127w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0Quoting Charles Baudelaire with the title &#8220;Evil Comes up Softly Like a Flower,&#8221; Melly uses acrylic, charcoal, and dress patterns to make one of the most ominous, yet still amusing, paintings in this series. Here, flowers have teeth and raging faces.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Dandelion-Whine.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15215\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Dandelion-Whine.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"998\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Dandelion-Whine.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Dandelion-Whine-150x300.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Dandelion-Whine-96x192.jpeg 96w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But they are comfortably more relatable in &#8220;Dandelion Wine,&#8221; in which a dandelion tears out its seeds in frustration.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Unstill-Life.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15220\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Unstill-Life.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"999\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Unstill-Life.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Unstill-Life-150x300.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Unstill-Life-96x192.jpeg 96w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And we can feel intense empathy for the sad blooms in works such as &#8220;Un-Still Life,&#8221; in which a lavendar, daisy-like flower has thorns and weeps purple blooded tears.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0In another work, the artist herself melds or morphs into a flower, a pale periwinkle and peacefully meditative one, in &#8220;Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lotus.&#8221; Surrounded by a geometric abstract patterns, the figure is part statue, part flower, absorbed fully in the act of blooming, yet trapped in stillness.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Portrait-1copy.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15219\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Portrait-1copy.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"759\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Portrait-1copy.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Portrait-1copy-198x300.jpeg 198w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Portrait-1copy-126x192.jpeg 126w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0Perhaps, we can hope that our time in pandemic shut down can allow us to achieve a similarly mesmerized state. Viewing Melly&#8217;s delicate, lovely, and unsettling works may just have that effect.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0Melly&#8217;s work is beautifully paired with the light-based blend of Richard Slechta&#8217;s photography and art, <em>Incompressible Flow<\/em>; Chris Madens&#8217; glowy dimensional assemblies, <em>The Covid Kiss<\/em>; and a group show, <em>Felicitious<\/em>,\u00a0 an all-media compilation depicting the current zeitgeist.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0The exhibition is on view through June 24th. Gallery 825 is located at 825 N. La Cienega.\u00a0 Melly is offering curated visits; the gallery is also open by appointment at other times, reach out at <a id=\"yui_3_17_2_1_1655183622664_329\" href=\"https:\/\/www.laaa.org\/felicitous-and-3-solo-exhibitions#\">gallery825@laaa.org.<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_4548.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15211\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_4548.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_4548.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_4548-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_4548-256x192.jpeg 256w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-1.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-15212\" src=\"http:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-1.jpeg 240w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-1-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-1-144x192.jpeg 144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Genie Davis &#8211; images provided by the artist<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0In a way, who isn&#8217;t afraid, just a little bit, of flowers? We may fear their incredible fragility, of losing them to an all-too-quick death, to knowing their perfection is ephemeral and their beauty so temporary &#8211; an aching reminder of our own mortality. \u00a0 \u00a0However, for artist Susan Melly in her new Emerging &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/can-you-fear-and-adore-flowers-artist-susan-melly-provides-answers-in-new-work-at-laaa\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Can You Fear and Adore Flowers? Artist Susan Melly Provides Answers in New Work at LAAA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[1524,223,391,107],"class_list":["post-15208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-emerging-fear-of-flowers","tag-gallery-825","tag-laaa","tag-susan-melly"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Melly-Porthole.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15208"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15228,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15208\/revisions\/15228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diversionsla.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}