In my painting, I’m depicting the unshakable sensation that there is symbolism buried in ordinary, everyday experience. Increasingly, I am drawn to symbolically depicting the relationship between analog and digital realities, how these separate realms overlap, blur and co-mingle to radically augment and bend our perception. This new split reality amplifies the feeling of seeing the archetypal in the mundane. My paintings evoke the sensation of simultaneous realms visually by collaging different painting methods that capture reality at different speeds: one through a camera, one through direct observation, one from memory.
Melissa Brown lives and works in New York. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include, NYNY2020 at Derek Eller Gallery, Melissa Brown and Jamie Bull at Dodd Gallery at University of Georgia in Athens, Going AWOL, Biggins Gallery at Auburn University, Between States, Derek Eller Gallery, Tennis Elbow, the Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, Past Present Future at Magenta Planes, Paper Fortune at CANADA, in New York City and internationally at Roberto Paradise, San She has participated in group exhibitions at Mass MOCA, Canada, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Klaus Von Nichtssagend and Musée International Des Arts Modestes, and Deitch Projects, Los Angeles. In 2012 she was awarded the Joan Mitchell Painter’s Grant and a residency at the Joan Mitchell Center in 2019. Her work is in the permanent collections at the Whitney Museum of Art and the New York City Department of Education. She is an associate professor in art at Lehman College, City University of New York.