Opening Reception: Thursday, November 16, 6–8 pm
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of four new paintings by Melissa Brown in our Project Room. Utilizing her signature collage of painting techniques, Brown depicts a pair of observations on two different floral arrangements, conjuring notions of temporality, memory, and personal reflection.
Brown’s bouquets are comprised of wild flowers gathered from her own experiences: mountain laurel snipped on a hike with a friend, geraniums and zinnias cut from her backyard pots or clippings given by neighbors. She photographs her arrangement with an iPhone and makes an observational painting. The end result is a combination of the screen printed photograph hybridized with passages painted in impasto or airbrush. This process, along with the fact that each painting has a non-identical twin, underscores the various stages of visualization and the sense of being once, twice, or many times removed from the actual object. Brown is interested in the hierarchical differences between how a memory is captured in the digital sphere versus how it is remembered in the body: how the human mind pushes forward what is emotionally resonant, phenomenological, or temporarily beautiful.
Melissa Brown (b.1974) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include Windows and Bars at Derek Eller Gallery, West Coast Paintings at Anat Egbi in Los Angeles, Thrift Store Find at Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago, Fountain, Melissa Brown and Jamie Bull at Dodd Gallery, University of Georgia in Athens, Going AWOL at Biggins Gallery, Auburn University, The Journal at Tennis Elbow in Brooklyn, Past Present Future at Magenta Planes, Paper Fortune at CANADA in New York City and internationally at Roberto Paradise, San Juan. She has participated in group exhibitions at Everyday Moonday Seoul, Parker Gallery, Venus Over Manhattan, Mass MOCA, 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 American Art, the New York City Department of Education, and the Fidelity Corporate Collection. She is an associate professor in art at Lehman College, City University of New York. This will be her third solo exhibition at the gallery.