Detail of Happily Ever After (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 57.25 inches. All images courtesyof Harpers, New York, shared with permisisonBees and Irridescent Bubbles Infiltrate Still-Life Traditions in Marc Dennis PaintingsFebruary 7, 2025ArtGrace EbertDuring the Dutch Golden Age, vanitas grew in popularity as a genre of memento mori that emphasized lifes transience. The opulent paintings were steeped in symbolism and foregrounded the futility of ambition and worldly pleasures.Marc Dennis draws on this 17th-century tradition as he refashions the still life for a contemporary audience. In a recent oil painting, Happily Ever After, hordes of honeybees and hornets descend on a lush bouquet. Kaleidoscopic bubbles float across the five-foot canvas, reflecting the surrounding colors and distorting clear viewers of nearby flowers and fruit. Happily Ever After (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 57.25 inchesThe insects and glossy orbs add another layer of impermanence to the already fleeting imagery, while also reflecting on the tenuous relationship between the organic and human-made. Similar tensions appear in Allegory of the Readymade, which suffocates and warps a seemingly vibrant painting with thick layers of plastic wrap. Each of the works clings to a brief moment in time, capturing both life at its prime and serving as a bold reminder of its inevitable end.Dennis paintings are on view in Im Happy Youre Here through March 1 at Harpers Gallery in New York. Find more from the artist on Instagram.Based on a True Story (2024), oil on linen, 70.75 x 55 inchesDetail of Based on a True Story (2024), oil on linen, 70.75 x 55 inchesSuperstar (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 55 inchesPortrait of the Artist as a Juvenile Delinquent (2024), oil on linen, 72 x 58 inchesAllegory of the Readymade (2024), oil on linen, 48.75 x 37 inchesGiottos Fly (2024), oil on linen, 72.5 x 96 inchesDracula (2024), oil on linen, 71.5 x 56 inNext article