Melissa Brown Discusses Art Practice And Early Influences

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Artist Melissa Brown recently discussed her artistic practice, drawing connections between her signature cat-eye makeup, which she has worn since her teenage years, and her paintings. Her work frequently blends sacred and profane elements, incorporating mirrored surfaces, shop windows, psychic readings, and domestic altars, according to an interview last month. Brown employs a diverse range of techniques, including photography, plein-air painting, CMYK printing, airbrush, and stencil, to convey the complex layers of daily experience. Some of her pieces even feature QR codes that direct viewers to animations.

Brown's 2020 painting“Commute” depicts a hand with long press-on nails manipulating shiny meditation balls inside a vacant subway car during the pandemic. The Brooklyn Bridge is visible outside the window, alongside a glowing orb of sunlight. A painted strobe effect animates the fingers and reflective balls, referencing British Vorticist painter Sybil Andrews. Brown's studio, located on the second floor of a building in Flatbush, Brooklyn, above a bustling deli and below a braiding salon, evokes the collision of mundane and performative beauty rituals found in her glass shop window paintings.

Born in 1974 in Morristown, New Jersey, Brown earned her BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2000. Currently, Brown is a professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York. She recently co-curated“Does This Taste Funny? Humor in Contemporary Art,” a two-venue group exhibition presented at the Lehman College Art Gallery and the Gallery at Heimbold Visual Arts Center at Sarah Lawrence College. Her recent solo exhibition,“Window Shopping,” was shown in New York at Derek Eller Gallery, where she has exhibited since 2017.

Brown recounted her early artistic inspirations, noting a formative experience at the Ben Franklin Museum in Center City, Philadelphia, during her childhood. She explained:“It had recently been updated for the Bicentennial. There was an infinity mirror room with a lot of neon, and an interactive room with phones that you could pick up and listen to someone from history. There was also a glass harmonica. As a child, I was constantly asking to go there and my mom would take me. I even went through a phase where I wanted to be called 'Ben Franklin.' We visited his print shop a million times. It must have had an influence. When it came time to visit colleges, one of them was RISD. I was seduced by it, and that was the determining factor. I went into their Woods-Gerry Gallery and felt it was where I wanted to be.”

Source: Hyperallergic

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