Fake Flowers features recent works by Maria Britton and April Childers. Dated and decorative objects, such as floral bed sheets and cookie jars, serve as source material and points of departure for Britton and Childers.

     Britton works with floral patterned bed sheets and uses needle and thread to manipulate the familiar floral surfaces into sculptural paintings. Britton has an improvisational approach to painting that rests on her ever evolving visual language based on both real and imagined flowers. Her paintings take a variety of forms including free hanging draperies, shaped supports, and square format paintings. The original floral patterns undergo a transformation, suggesting both a detachment from and a soft spot for the flowers linked to distinct yet distant eras.

     Childers makes paintings and sculptures referencing specific objects and imagery borrowed from popular culture and her private life. In her work, Childers aims for an enhanced perception through alienation and detachment. Her seemingly urgent expressions point to complex relationships between the original functions of the referenced objects and her work. Understanding that the referenced object will be rendered vacant of its original function through her reinterpretation, Childers works towards possible connections between what already exists and mimicked portrayals. 

     Fake flowers are intended to imitate real flowers, functioning as long lasting and economical stand-ins for the real thing. Cheap facades reveal their deceit and fall short of fulfilling the desired illusion. Never say die.