Details:

This painting, part of a series, appropriates imagery from etchings by the early 20th-century artist Marquis von Bayros, who was commissioned by European aristocracy to make erotic material. These works exemplify how the artist frequently repurposes older European imagery to make paintings that speak to the 21st-century femme experience.
Unframed
Signed

① Artwork:

Erotic Garden (Blue Mirror)

This painting is part of Blue, the next evolution in the artist's Erotic Garden series—begun while she was an Internet Archive Resident in 2018. The series appropriates imagery from etchings by the Marquis von Bayros who, in the early 20th century, was commissioned by European aristocracy to make erotic material. These works exemplify how Marple's work frequently repurposes older European imagery to make paintings that speak to the 21st-century femme experience.

In Marple's series, von Bayros's etchings have been altered through cropping, use of color and a focus on materiality, as well as added visual elements—such as the substitution of a dandelion for a head—to fit a more contemporary feminist perspective. Additionally, the works in Blue are inspired by Maggie Nelson's prose poem Bluets. These paintings are an emotional and a visual investigation into longing and melancholy, a continuation of the artist's ongoing interest in narrative, sexuality and the cataloging of emotions. Through a feminist social-emotional lens, Marple's work examines the contemporary undoing of a millennia-old patriarchal ideology.

Specs:

30 inches
40 inches

③ Artist:

Mieke Marple

Artist, writer and activist Mieke Marple’s work investigates narrative and sexuality through a feminist lens—exploring both social issues and their emotional resonances. The artist’s paintings feature a neon palette and repurpose older European imagery while speaking to the 21st-century femme experience. Marple’s work explores the undoing of millennia-old patriarchal ideology in the contemporary moment.

Mieke Marple is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. Marple has exhibited internationally, including in "Techno-Healing" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb and "Elan Vital" at MOCA Westport. Recent solo exhibitions include "Tarot Reckoning" and "Bed Feminist" at Ever Gold [Projects] in SF, and "God is an Audiobook" at 1301PE in LA.

She has been written about by The New York Times, W Magazine, The Guardian, Fortune, Elle, and Autre, among other publications. She has written for The Huffington PostLit Hub, Zyzzyva, ArtNews, and Artsyamong others.

Through various charity art auctions, she has helped raise over a million and a half dollars for Planned Parenthood LA and a quarter million for prison abolitionist organization Critical Resistance.

She received a B.A. in Fine Art from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2008. Marple was co-founder of NFTuesdayLA and co-owner of Night Gallery from 2011-2016. She is creator of the Medusa Collection, a set of generative art NFTs reframing the Medusa myth. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Crypto Art, Seattle NFT Museum, and McEvoy Family Collection.

Mieke Marple:
Erotic Garden (Blue Mirror), 2022
Acrylic and metal foil on canvas
40.0 × 30.0 inches /