Melissa Dorn Richards
medium: painting
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Contact information
Artist resides in: Milwaukee, WI
Email Address: dornrichards@gmail.com
Web site: www.melissadornrichards.com
Artist statement
I am interested in the ways that, for those who are paying attention to the world around us, our imagination is capable of animating the often banal and inanimate experiences and objects in our day-to-day lives. In my work, I draw from these daily occurrences and elevate common objects to higher ground by focusing all my energy and attention on them.
Exploring gesture, line, color, form and texture, I play with these elements to see how they can figuratively obscure the object. By selectively picking certain characteristics from the object that convey a slight gesture or sense of humor, I leave room for ambiguity, opening the door for viewers to enter and interact with the work. Color is incredibly important in my work, both the complete saturation that creates its own movement or vibrations to the seemingly absence of color where I rely on texture to create a similar movement.
Biography
Melissa Dorn Richards works between painting and sculpture. She draws from common everyday objects, things often over-looked or past by, as subject matter and infuses them with humor and expressive color. Dorn Richards is a Milwaukee-based artist, who holds a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. A practicing artist for 20 years, she is represented by Frank Juarez Gallery in Wisconsin.
Her work can be found in many corporate collections including Tax-Air, Northwestern Mutual, Mandel Group, West Bend Mutual Insurance Company, Littler Mendelson and Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
Select exhibitions include: Detroit Biennale, Museum of New Art; Wisconsin Artists Biennial, Museum of Wisconsin Art; Preservatif, Stockholm Gallery; Forward 2014, Charles Allis Art Museum; Up, Down!, River Edge Gallery; Moving Mountains, Frank Juarez Gallery; Schematic, UW-Sheboygan; Eight Counties, John Michael Kohler Arts Center; Art Chicago and Aqua Art Miami, Hotcakes Gallery.
Dorn Richards is also active in the local arts community through her work co-chairing the Milwaukee Artist Resource Network (MARN) advisory council and as a board director and previous lead artist for Artworks for Milwaukee. Her newest adventure is as co-managing director of Material Studios + Gallery, a space for artists to create, produce and develop their entrepreneurial practice.