With Melissa Meyer, drawing and painting play an equal role in generating her linear element – and she cannot be accused of forsaking either in not separating them. An arabesque can remain just that or it can thicken and double to become a shape. Other times areas of color are drawn over or partially cancelled out, the choice constantly varying. When it comes to her consideration of composition, spontaneity would appear to win out over structure because the hand is ahead of thought. But there is no attendant loss of control as experience clearly informs the hand as much as it does thought. A painting always happens over a period of time: it is a time-based medium after all, a fact of which Meyer’s approach makes a virtue by repeatedly elapsing one painterly moment or relationship into the next, simultaneously exposing the process and allowing it to run backwards and forwards for the viewer. There is always discovery in Meyer’s paintings, even when there are clear horizons to head towards. DAVID RHODES (2014)
on view through May 7, 514 West 25th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, New York City, (212) 941-0012
Melissa Meyer, Entangled, 2016. Oil on canvas, diptych, 24 x 72 inches. Courtesy of Lennon, Weinberg, Inc.
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