Loading

Melanie Carr Deconstructing Constructs

Bio

Melanie Carr is a Connecticut-based artist who received her MFA from the College of Art and Design at Lesley University in 2011. Carr began her studies in visual art after serving in the United States Navy as an Operations Specialist onboard the USS Willamette (AO-180) in Pearl Harbor. After a10 year career at the New Britain Museum of American Art as the Director of Visitor Experience & Curator of New Media, she is a visual art faculty member at The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT where she teaches drawing and sculpture. Additionally, Carr has been teaching a variety of studio art and arts administration courses at the University of Connecticut, Central Connecticut State University, University of New Haven, and Albertus Magnus College.

Carr’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Mercy Gallery, Windsor CT; Soapbox Gallery, NYC; City Arts on Pearl, Hartford CT; Westport Arts Center, Westport CT; and Pegasus Gallery, Middletown CT. In addition, Carr’s work was included in numerous exhibits that include The Point, UK; Gibney Dance, NYC; Gallery Aferro; New Jersey; The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington; Mattatuck Museum, CT; Hans Weiss Newspace Gallery, CT; and Herter Gallery, MA.

From 2017 to 2020, Carr opened and directed an artist-run hybrid project space dedicated to presenting thoughtfully curated work from emerging to mid-career artists. With Carr’s studio in the back of the gallery, over 150 artists from across the country and abroad participated in solo and group exhibitions, performances, and educational programming at MCG.

Deconstructing Constructs

Artist's Statement

This new body of work reflects my interest and exploration in the possibilities of abstraction; realizing shapes into forms, situated at the intersection of multiple disciplines -- painting, sculpture, design, and pedagogy.

The concept for this exhibition was to engage the gallery space as a playground of color, shape and form, a space for lingering, exploring - and if the stars align, one for daydreaming. The work is abstract and playful and invites the viewer to experience the artwork both visually and physically.

The work includes abstract, loosely geometric, and brightly colored puffy paintings, a bookshelf and an interactive sculpture, all situated between art and design. It’s intuitive, with a heavy dose of playfulness, but grounded in a consistent process with a central goal of challenging preconceptions.

Each work starts out as a series of simple, sometimes awkward, pencil sketches—more than a gesture, less than a precise design— which is then further developed through color, maquettes and considerations of scale, ultimately leading to a finished work of art.

In Deconstructing Constructs, I ask: when is a painting a sculpture; or a sculpture, a bench? How much do we allow our collective preconceptions to dictate what something is, or can be? Creative investigation ought to be without fear or assumption; there are no “wrong answers.” It’s a process of searching that welcomes new ideas and challenges existing perceptions while employing the freedom of art-making to manifest abstract concepts as physical objects, landmarks of exploration. In sculpture, anything is possible.

Photos of the Deconstructing Constructs gallery opening.

Artwork Currently on display

Wall Construction 2021 - Acrylic and canvas on upholstered board 25.75 x 25.25 inches
Wall Hug 2022 Plywood & latex 13 x 60 x 20 inches
Broken Rectangle 2021 Latex and canvas on upholstered board 23.75 x 15.75 inches
Imaginary Reality 2021 Acrylic and canvas on upholstered board 19.25 x 9.75 inches
A Magical Garden of Make Believe 2021 Acrylic and canvas on upholstered board 13.25 x 19.25
Surface Tension 2022 Latex and canvas on upholstered board 46 x 67 inches
Somewhere Between 2021 Latex and canvas on upholstered board 22 x 41 inches
Happy 2022 Acrylic and canvas on upholstered board 17 x 19.5 inches
Floor Construct Wood & latex 2022

The Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Gallery Art Exhibition

Winter 2022

Credits:

Photo Credits: Cassandra Hamer