{"id":51634,"date":"2025-09-08T22:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/51634\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T22:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:21:08","slug":"maud-madsens-oil-paintings-explore-childhood-memories-daydreams-and-nesting-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/51634\/","title":{"rendered":"Maud Madsen’s Oil Paintings Explore Childhood Memories, Daydreams, and Nesting \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooklyn-based artist Maud Madsen<\/a> delves into what it means to find comfort, inspiration, and security in our domestic spaces. Her current solo exhibition, Dweller at Half Gallery<\/a>, taps into the vast realm of memory as she depicts herself building structures in the snow or pillow forts from couch cushions\u2014activities we often associate with kids\u2019 unbridled creativity and ingenuity. They are also shelters.<\/p>\n

Evocative of children\u2019s book author Chris Van Allsburg\u2019s dramatic and mysterious illustrations in acclaimed titles like Jumanji, Polar Express, and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick<\/a>, Madsen often centers the living room or bedroom\u2014places that define relaxation and dreaming\u2014as places where voyages of the imagination take place.<\/p>\n

\"an\u201cTwin Beds (Blanket Fort)\u201d (2025), oil on linen, 78 x 110 inches<\/p>\n

For Madsen, a similar approach shapes her renditions of childhood activities that highlight nostalgic and engrossing activities like building blanket forts or playing with a 1980s-era Fisher Price farm set. Deep shadows, enigmatic settings, and uncanny situations converge in the artist\u2019s alluring and mysterious oil paintings.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause all of the artist\u2019s compositions deal with childhood memories, Maud is also quite literally dwelling on the past,\u201d the gallery says. \u201cThe double meaning of her show title is a kind of trick mirror, or maybe force-multiplier, concentrating our attention on the spaces (many self-created) that her figures occupy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lit perhaps by a distant porch light or the moon shining in through a window, the artist\u2019s recent paintings are set at night, suggesting these moments may be dreams or even the result of insomnia. Nighttime can be seen as symbolic of both an ending and a transition into something new, like that of adolescence to adulthood. Madsen\u2019s compositions also examine the notion of \u201cnesting,\u201d in which we carefully organize and curate our domestic spaces to define our tastes and needs in a way that feels comfortable, autonomous, and safe. <\/p>\n

Dweller continues through October 2 in New York City. See more on the artist\u2019s website<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"an\u201cDen\u201d (2025), oil on linen, 30 x 24 inches<\/p>\n

\"an\u201cCanopy\u201d (2025), oil on linen, 30 x 24 inches<\/p>\n

\"an\u201cLights Out\u201d (2025), oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches<\/p>\n

\"an\u201cNight Shift\u201d (2025), oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches<\/p>\n

\"an\u201cHeavy Snow\u201d (2025), oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches<\/p>\n

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