Check out the “Preview Works in Progress” tab for current progress on this continual work in progress.
In the summer of 2022, “Landscape” hovered above in its 4th installation at Coggeshall Farm at 1 Colt Drive in Bristol, RI 02809.
Like the bayside it is inspired by, this installation has shifted its presentation yet again. This time the drawing cascades down from the rafters encouraging the viewer to look up and walk underneath it to discover what lies within its layers. This installation is the first contemporary art exhibit for this historic farm and the first time I have installed artwork in the company of sheep.
Introducing a transfiguration and a new iteration of an evolving installation
Now on view at the Jamestown Arts Center until May 7th with 18 additional feet of drawing since its last installation. Like the bayside it is inspired by, this installation has a shifting presentation. This time the drawing climbs 11 feet up the wall and cascades toward the viewer 7 feet on the floor encouraging the viewer to investigate and discover what lies within its layers.
“Landscape” as installed at the Jamestown Arts Center, 2022
detail of “Landscape” installed at the Jamestown Arts Center 2022
Landscape is getting ready for an upcoming installation in back in Rhode Island (details to follow). This sculpture is always evolving like the bay side beach it references. While the work is being refreshed and readied for installation, its artist statement has also evolved. Words are not my first love so it is a more difficult and rocky road as I document the art and my thoughts into a statement.
“Landscape” installed at MASSARTxSOWA gallery, 2021
detail of “Landscape” installed at the MASSARTxSOWA gallery, 2021
In its second installation “Landscape” climbs the wall for the first time rising 8 feet and crawling toward the viewer 11 feet off the wall. This installation introduces found objects into its folds.
Melanie dai Medeiros elaborates on the dissonance between reality and perceived reality in her pursuit of individual and collective memories. Memories, like our environment, are layered, fluid, and accumulative. This body of work began as an introspection into the jumble of disparate images that constitute memory. Realizing her own follies in her efforts to reflect alone to seek truths in her past, she began to seek the collective memories contained within a place, in particular Prudence Island (historically Chibachuweset) in Narragansett Bay. This past is narrated using the community to construct the story of the land through found objects, shared narratives, and intimate observation. Examining each perspective exposed the duplicity of consciousness – juxtaposing the known with the felt. These objects are documents. Each one contains the parallel perspective of a memory collected within the fibers of paper. Perceptions of memories as those of our environment can be transparent or opaque depending on the moment of recall. In visual affinity with nature’s shifting presentation, this paper sculpture’s malleable nature mimics the transfigurative and deceptive nature of our memories.
Simultaneously seeking the past and present of a parcel of coastline, a drawing in three dimensions is sprawled across the floor engaged in the act of translating a stretch of earth manipulated by time, elements, man-inflicted trauma and its powers of rejuvenation. The work is a visual experience that encourages the viewer to look in new ways and discover what lies before them. The paper climbs, rolls and overlaps in haphazard layers and overhanging formations in response to an intersection of land and bay. Monochromatic palette emphasizes the variety of forms found within search for the elements of ecology, geology, and spirituality of this coastal intersection centrally situated in Rhode Island. Charcoal lines oscillate from representational depictions to rhythms and patterns referencing the composition of the soil itself with overlapping and intertwined elements giving voice to and pointing out the life force taken for granted under our feet. This installation examines the memory contained within a place while celebrating the land’s innate cyclical and regenerative qualities.
GREAT NEWS!! My 4’x19’3”x28” thesis work Landscape will be on view at IMAGO Gallery in Rhode Island on display for the first time ever from June 25- August 1st. Please come by and visit!
detail of “Landscape” installed at IMAGO Foundation for the Arts, 2021
Click here to view our Virtual Thesis Show as an interactive experience.
LANDSCAPE (THESIS INSTALL), charcoal, abaca pulp, watercolor paper, multimedia paper, gampi paper and graphite on reflective mylar, 2020.
A note on the process for creating “Landscape” (working title for the Thesis)
This piece is the result of direct observation on a small island in Narragansett Bay. Initially and periodically the land is explored in multi-generational excursions with my elders and children. Knowledge is passed down with equal respect from fisherman, farmers, hunters, biologists, and geologists about the land as we observe it in nature.
Additionally artifacts from the land itself are borrowed and studied from the remains of mammals and invertebrates who knew this land intimately, to the rocks and branches that have been weathered by the winds and tides, to the debris left behind from modern day boaters, trash barges, fisherman, past residents, and the abandoned military base. Each piece gathered has its own textures, smells, shapes, forms, and history. Once gathered and observed the objects are then rendered repetitively on a massive 4’x27’ scroll of paper. Some objects are then recreated three dimensionally as a paper form.
After most of the large drawings were completed, I then took the large drawing and scaled it down redrawing it onto 4”x @27” long pieces of paper to recreate the larger piece. This smaller piece is seen here in these photographs. Both the macro and the micro version would ideally be displayed together but for visual impact the micro version is being used virtually.
With the macro perspective I am presenting an overarching view of the power of the landscape. With the micro perspective, I focus on the details to examine a way to implement my existing point of view and have modified it in response to my current situation.
While a micro version of this work was always an impulse for me to follow to figure out the abstract moments of the larger piece, our current pandemic is what made this interest become a reality as a companion if not miniaturized alter ego of my original (and continued) interpretation of this coastal intersection of land and bay.
A VIEW FROM MY JANUARY REVIEW. THIS INCLUDES LAYERS 1 AND 2 OF THE DRAWING BEFORE I HAD COMPLETED THE UNDERBELLY OF LAYER 2 (SEE BELOW). LAYERS 3 AND 4 COMING SOON!
THE UNDERBELLY OF LAYER 2 COMPLETED
A SAMPLING OF OBJECTS TO BE INCLUDED WITHIN THE INSTALLATION