Bride (work of art)

About

Bride, a five-tiered, ten-foot tall, monumental still life, cascades down from perfect order to total chaos, as the more than 500 individual glass elements that make up this excessive, decadent work are knocked over, slumped, broken, melted, and shattered by the time they reach the bottom tier. This multi-layered, crystal-clear still life alludes to the layers of a wedding cake, the flounces of an elaborate bridal gown, and still-life paintings throughout art history, with selected elements inspired by works in the permanent collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, including a 17^th-century German silver cup by Paulus Fischer and workshop;  a plate of fish that appears in Pieter Aertsen’s 16^th-century market scene painting, A Meat Stall, as well as in David Salle’s painting, The Emperor, from 2000; the cat and bird in Frans Snyders’ 17^th-century painting, Market Scene on a Quay; a candlestick from Bernardo Strozzi’s 17^th-century painting, St. Lawrence Distributing the Treasures of the Church; and the 19^th-century Ottoman Esther Scroll and Case from the Judaic collection.