In 1947, a DeBeers copywriter named Frances Gerety coined the phrase "A Diamond is Forever," fundamentally altering how generations of Americans would express love through material objects. What Gerety understood—and what artist Maggie Meiners now brilliantly deconstructs—is that our symbols of affection are never just symbols. They are windows into who we are.

Consider the necklace. In Meiners' stark compositions, these familiar tokens of romance hover in empty space, divorced from context. At first glance, you might think this isolation diminishes their power. But something far more fascinating is happening: stripped of their commercial context, these objects begin to tell us a story about ourselves—about the intricate psychology of how we've learned to translate emotion into object.

Then there are the perfume bottles. In the 1980s, psychologist Robert Zajonc discovered that repeated exposure to an image or idea makes people like it more—the mere exposure effect. The perfume industry understood this intuitively for decades, placing their distinctive bottles on vanities and in advertisements until they became almost architectural in our collective consciousness. Meiners takes these familiar forms and forces us to confront our learned associations with fresh eyes.

THE EXHIBITION

“Act Like A Lady” on view now at Upstart Modern

What makes this collection particularly compelling is how it sits at the intersection of three powerful social forces: our innate desire for connection, the commodification of emotion, and our growing awareness of how these patterns shape us. It's what I call the Valentine's Paradox—the more we recognize these commercial constructs, the more powerfully they seem to work.

In my conversations with Meiners, she shared something striking: "These objects are like cultural mutations that have evolved to perfectly exploit our deepest desires." She's right, and that's what makes her work so compelling. It's not just art—it's a mirror showing us how we've been shaped by forces we barely notice.