Irvine Contemporary is pleased to announce Robert Mellor's
second solo exhibition at Irvine, New Scenarios, opening Saturday,
May 26 with a reception from 6:00-8:00 PM. The exhibition runs through June 27.
Robert Mellor's new series
of paintings boldly expands his innovative fusion of hard-edge organic composition
techniques and original color harmonies. The word "scenario" originally
referred to the instructions on the back of painted theater scenery used as
directions for actors entering a "scene." Robert Mellor's New
Scenarios can
be viewed as new propositions for visual enactment by the viewer, each work
providing cues for engaging with the composition, layer by layer, edge by edge,
line by line, color by color. While it can be said that any work of art comes
alive as art by a viewer's active engagement, Mellor foregrounds this
relationship by composing works of arresting beauty that compel viewers to
re-enact the process of composition with the artist.
In this new series of paintings, Mellor often combines references
abstracted from landscape and organic forms, city scapes and architecture,
Japanese woodblock prints, and cascading fabric from fashion design in totally
new ways. His astonishing and original color harmonies command attention and
continually reward viewers who take a contemplative pause and convert compositional
space into time. Mellor is also the edge master, sculpting visual space with
his hard-edge lines and interplay of forms, working at the edge of figuration
and abstraction, building paintings from multiple layers that push the works
into three dimensions as substantial objects in their own right. Mellor's New
Scenarios are a set of enticements and seductions for viewers that make
a bold, affirmative statement for new directions in painting today.
About the Artist
Robert Mellor has an MFA from Claremont University in California.
He began his gallery exhibition career in Los Angeles, and now lives in works
in Chatham, VA, near Washington, DC.
Exhibition
Press Release and Artist's Resume in PDF
