Melissa Wye Geraci
The Matrix of Abstraction
June 26 - July 17, 2007
Reception:
Thursday June 28, 2007 6-8 PM
Press Release
The paintings of Melissa Wye Geraci reflect the theme of life, loss and change, born of an intense personal experience that changed her life and art forever. Geraci’s world was swept away by the floods when two back-to-back hurricanes destroyed her Louisiana home. Her world may have been shattered, but her art was reborn and she began to use oil and acrylic to capture the scenes of wreckage and rebirth on her canvases. Geraci’s large abstracts are a holistic view of life after the hurricanes. In the series After the Floods and Buried Photographs, she brings into play color combinations, textures and rhythms to communicate her vision of a world where spaces lose their meaning, becoming a fusion of furniture, walls, floors, clothes, and personal belongings. The fluid brushstrokes are full of unpredictability. The water, mud, and toxic waste take on the role of adhesive in this surreal collage. The artist’s vision seeps into the viewer’s subconscious through her use of color: threatening blues and blacks merge with yellows, reds and whites. They ooze into each other like liquid entities, merging and reshaping themselves into a new reality. As she rethought her art, so did the artist rebuild her life. With nothing but the clothes on their backs and their beloved pets, Geraci and her husband moved to Baltimore where Melissa teaches art to handicapped inner-city preschool children.
Invitation to the exhibition
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View the catalog page
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Artists in this exhibition
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