Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present Bombshell, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Emily Furr. This marks Furr’s debut Los Angeles presentation and is her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. In this new body of work, Furr employs sexual innuendo and feminine tropes as allegories for war and weaponry, producing provocative and ironic images that examine cultural attitudes towards technology.
In Bombshell, Furr turns her focus to explicit signifiers of femininity, such as high heels, compacts, and perfume bottles. As the double entendre of the title implies, these items are at once alluring and potentially dangerous. In these works, makeup serves as warpaint and nail polish drips like blood. Masculinity is also present throughout the works, as lipstick tubes and missiles both evoke phalluses that pierce the compositions. Furr’s signature cosmic skies serve as backdrops to this psychosexual play, placing these scenes in the context of a larger universe that supersedes and, occasionally, subsumes them.
This body of work is deeply influenced by midcentury culture and the Pop Art movement that it spawned. Paying homage to vintage advertising with saturated colors and dynamic compositions, the works recall the glossy magazine spreads and propaganda posters of that era. Andy Warhol’s Bomb sculpture, as well as his Death and Disaster series, are both conceptual sources for Furr. The libidinal drives towards both consumer goods and violent actions are interrogated by her canvases.
