Minneapolis-based painter Melissa Loop borrows from and subverts Romantic ideas about landscape art in these stunning, fantastical works that speak to the artificality of imagined paradises. The hyper-colored canvases present exotic locations as if conjured from some dystopian dream, complete with haphazard drips, neon spray paint and jumbled digitized shapes.
From the artist:
By using the guise of romantic landscape painting, I am exploring the slippery ideas of place, the way tourism and media perpetuate fantasies of the exotic, and the ways cultural identities are manipulated, misplaced, and reinvented in an age of globalization and longing for authenticity. In addition to landscape painting history, my work is concerned with how to negotiate my own desires and concerns in an age where we can travel anywhere for a price and many of the best landscapes are quickly disappearing due to the warming of the planet.
You can view more of Melissa’s work on her website, and check out her blog, Nomad*Heart.
(h/t)