ARTIST BIO
Melissa Furness is an American artist of North Central European descent who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Furness is known for creating complex, Maximalist works that challenge the predominance of historically Western world narratives. The artist examines distortions of history, questioning what is revered versus what is discarded and forgotten, drawing from locational experiences in seeking to push the boundaries of painting tradition by treating it as a conceptual object. Her work highlights both narratives shaped by power structures and the individual—what is presented as truth versus the realities of personal and local histories. Amongst all of this is a depiction of struggle affected by history as expressed in ways that are responsive to the human experience.
Furness responds to contemporary dialog surrounding the critical effort to decolonize, diversify and expand traditional art historical narratives. The work speaks to the present, responsive to perceived turmoil as waves of conflict have erupted with current military issues, immigration criminalization, an erosion of gender rights, the rise of Artificial Intelligence and economic struggles. It our current state of affairs, piled with reference to historical constructs and signaling imagery of erosion and overgrowth as life changes before us even as we continue to be affected by our past.
Melissa Furness’ work is influenced by her experiences of travel, which have included artist’s residencies around the world–those with Jentel in Wyoming, Yaddo in New York, the Laznia Center of Contemporary Art in Poland, Shankill Castle in Ireland, Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, the Hungarian Multicultural Center near Budapest; and the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, amongst others. Furness has participated in numerous international exhibitions, and was invited to show work at the 2016 Kochi-Muziris Biennial in Kerala, India through A.I.R. Gallery of New York. The artist also participated in the 2015 Biennial of the Americans with a fellowship in which she resided in Mexico City and exhibited work based on these experiences. She is an active member of the Artnauts Collective, through which she exhibits work in places with complex histories throughout the world in order to draw attention to significant socio-political issues. She has also been a member of two feminist and gender-focused artist collectives, A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn and the local Pink Progression.
Through her various residency experiences, Furness has exhibited work in Berkeley, California at the Vizivarosi and Keki Galleries and The Drawing Room HU in Budapest, and developed site specific projects in Mexico, Hungary, Ireland, the UK, Italy and China. Furness’ work has been represented in the past by galleries in New York, Seattle, Palm Springs and Zurich leading up to her current representation with K Contemporary Art (Denver and Santa Fe) and Kiechel Fine Art (Lincoln) galleries. Her work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions and art fairs in Seoul, Zurich, Cologne, Los Angeles, and Aspen. She has been featured in New American Paintings, Studio Visit Magazine, SeeAllThis Magazine, Klassik Magazine International, 303 Magazine, 5280 Magazine and others. Furness is currently a Professor and Program Director of Art Practices at CU Denver.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I consider myself to be a conceptual painter, with ideas driving me forward in an exploration of human nature and struggle as it manifests itself in relation to contemporary society and the remains of the past. The work utilizes painting as a historic medium while questioning the preciousness of the labored and idealized object, depicting it as part of a troubled history that encouraged colonialism, leading to the present day where our entanglement with this distant past remains as a signifier of the present.
My work has evolved as I have explored imagery about my experience as one disconnected from place and seeking to feel connected, of a nature reclaiming the past and an earth that we are disregarding, of once precious objects becoming trash, and piles of stuff as expressive of a culture while we become buried beneath it all as grotesque figures among the masses of our current gluttony. I am interested in what one culture upholds as significant–objects and ideals that we revere versus those that we discard or discount as unimportant. There are aspects of our histories that nations seek to bury but that somehow permeate in subtle ways even as these aspects slowly eat away at our individual sense of belonging. What does what we throw away say about us as a people versus what we place on a pedestal or seek to preserve? We touch and interact with the one while separating ourselves from the other.