Bio
Melissa Dickenson received her Bachelors of Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002. She has exhibited her work locally in Maryland at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Rosenberg Gallery at Goucher College, Gallery Imperato, and nationally at Rodger Lapelle Galleries in Philadelphia, Anno Dommini and Thinkspace Galleries both in California, as well as Transformer Gallery and American University in Washington, D.C. Internationally, Melissa has shown her work at Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo Japan.
Dickenson is a recipient of Maryland State Artist Awards in both 2006 and 2008, as well as a finalist for the Walter and Janet Sondheim Prize for 2008 and Semi- Finalist for both the Bethesda Painting Award and the Trawick Prize in 2009. Most recently she was awarded an Artist Grant to attend Masia Can Serrat, Barcelona, Spain for fellowship in 2009.
Past exhibitions include 'Exploration' at Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo Japan, ‘The Walter and Janet Sondheim Prize’ at Baltimore Museum of Art, and ‘No Soul for Sale’ art fair New York, NY. Melissa looks forward to featuring her work in ‘Hybrids of Tutela’, a solo exhibition this winter at the Mclean Project for the Arts. Dickenson’s work is part of the permanent collection of the Embassy of Sudan, Khartoum, Sudan.
Artist Statement
"Our intellectual and material existence is dependent nature. Flora and fauna have rescued humanity from the destructive hand of time on countless occasions. Nature is a direct reflection of our environment and it’s diminishing state, it is also one of the most important resources for mankind. Therefore it is appropriate that nature, which has patiently served mankind's progress, should speak about itself, its past, and its future.
The work I am presenting is painted hand-cut paper fused with acrylic substrates. They are a use of handmade paper and organic imagery, in partnership with vivid pigment and acrylic plastics. The dialogue created is that of struggle between two worlds, one where the laws of nature make sense and the other, a place in which these laws do not apply. The environment has historically shielded animal and plant form the elements, and, animal and plant have historically evolved with the environment’s ability to protect them. My imagery suggests that the stability of land, animal and plant comes from a third, artificial source. The addition of acrylic plastic to each piece is used to support the fragility of the paper as it seemingly floats in an ambiguous space. The idea I mean to propose is that the land today is now incapable of protecting nature on its own. The handmade, hand-cut paper mirrors a diminishing natural world and the use of acrylic plastic speaks of the faux materials derived to replace the resources we have used up. The landscapes created are seemingly happy and nice, but looking closer the darker side of our cyber world is revealed as animals and plants interact with their terrain.
Melissa Dickenson