I flirted with you all my life is an exhibition by artist Isabel Theselius that builds on myths around a diner, lounge, and bowling alley called The Red Mill, owned by Theselius’s husband’s great-grandparents in Detroit, Michigan, through the 1950s and 60s. Theselius grew interested in the diner after learning that it burned down twice under shadowy circumstances.

Through photographs and postcards of the interior, collected by her husband’s family and memorabilia found online, Theselius has recreated images, objects and a video piece inspired by the diner as the fire begins. The series dive into ideas of a mythic American past during the post-war boom years and the realities of loss and repeated tragedy with more sinister undertones of mounting civil unrest and the Detroit Riots in 1967 as the second version of The Red Mill burned to the ground during the riots/rebellions.

The title I flirted with you all my life is taken from a Vic Chesnutt song, where the singer is revealing his complicated relationship to death. In Theselius’s exhibition the line from Chesnutt’s song is referring to her longtime fascination with fire, as a simultaneous destructive and seductive force. For Theselius the symbol of flames can be stand in for both current and historical disasters but also a symbol for renewal and the potential for new beginnings.

Bio

Originally from Lund, Sweden, Theselius earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California Irvine and a BFA in Fine Arts from Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Theselius is included in the collection of The Public Art Agency Sweden and is the recipient of The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s two-year Work Grant (2021). She has received several grants and scholarships, including from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Helge Ax: son Johnsons Foundation, The Eric Ericson Artist Scholarship, and The Medici Scholarship, to name a few.

In 2019 Theselius participated in an artist residency at Crosstown Arts in Memphis, Tennessee, and in 2018 she participated in an artist exchange project in Tiznit, Morocco.

Recent solo shows include Central Server Works (2023) in Los Angeles, USA, 3:e Våningen (2023) in Gothenburg, Sweden, Elephant Art Space (2022) in Los Angeles, USA, Galleri Slätten (2021) in Malmö, Sweden, and Pio Pico Gallery (2020) in Los Angeles, USA.