“I always notice flowers" - Andy Warhol
Flowers for Friends
Most of this work was made in a time of needing comfort. In a time of intense and divisive feelings, war erupting, climate change ravaging, and topics of women’s rights and civil rights so heavy, that I have found presenting flowers as a critical way of taking up space in the face of uncertainty and violence.
The title for this show suggests an unapologetic embrace of sentiment, even full on sentimentality, emotionalism, nostalgia, and romanticism. An act of care and a token of love. A gesture of affection and consolation in spite of surging banality and transcationalism.
Flowers for Friends sets up a playful language of pattern and place, conveying moments of relief, nurturing, domesticity, companionship, rest and renewal. Interiors offer safe spaces for connection and contemplation. The garden theme moves inside walls and out, extending to abstraction, - giving symbolic importance to cultivation and shelter.
- Melanie Parke, 2022 (excerpted from artists's statement)
