Marc Dennis: Love Letter pays homage to Vermeer's love letter paintings through hyperrealistic still lifes and portraits that reinterpret French Neoclassical, Baroque, and Dutch Golden Age traditions with humor and subversion. Folded envelopes and creased notes appear throughout — their contents concealed, their symbolism grand — elevating a nearly disappeared form of intimate communication. Iridescent bubbles drift across surfaces containing fragments of landscape and personal imagery, while reimaginings of Caravaggio's Bacchus and three Ingres portraits introduce plump songbirds, lush bouquets, and anachronistic ice cream sundaes. The result is a love letter to painting's enduring traditions, observed from contemporary life.
