“Nepenthecae”
Mila Faranov
23 July → 14 Aug 2010
Nepenthes or Pitcher Plants are meat-eating plants, but they are also exquisitely beautiful. Filled with sticky liquid, they seduce their prey and then, slowly consume it. There is a beautiful yet abject nature to this plant, with all its metaphorical implications.
Watercolour is a primary medium in Mila Faranov's work, making a stain on paper that, whilst recreating the fantastical patterns and colours of the plant, also heightens its visceral and fleshy textures. The gallery is transformed into a hothouse diorama with its various metaphors of propagation, cultivation, the rarefied and the hybrid – to create something at once beautiful yet undeniably creepy and grotesque.
Mila Faranov graduated from Monash University in 1992. After working extensively as a costume designer, she re-directed herself to the visual arts. In 2007 she completed a Masters of Visual Art at the VCA. She has since exhibited at Seventh, Linden and c3 galleries.