Melissa Rubin

FIELD NOTES: Recent Work BY MELISSA RUBIN

January 17 - May 25, 2025 · January 18th Saturday 1-4pm opening reception

FIELD NOTES

Recent Work by Melissa Rubin

Field Notes consists of visual notations referencing the understory, the world below the canopy of the trees which is teeming with life, decay, the delicate balance in play and the fragility of the natural environment. It is a meditative, emotional and pictorial study, alluding to the entangled, interconnected webs of trees, branches, flowing springs, the infinite night sky, and the wildlife that calls it home. The raw materials I encounter become deep inspiration for my imagery and approach to my art. The many layers of papers, paints, various organic materials, such as wax, marble dust, carbon, silver leaf and clay, are evocative of forest underlayers and the interconnectedness of the wild environs. The understory, in a literary sense, is the architecture that undergirds, gives meaning to, and supports a story. In this regard,my work reflects the expansive, psychological experience of the narrative the natural world reveals. Exploring the terrain and its impact on my relationship to the environment, I create visual references to textures, branches, decay, and growth, all woven together to form a depiction of my outer and inner landscape. The media I use functions as my personal vocabulary of expression, as proxy to emotional states of mind. I consciously work with materials that help to facilitate a sense of light, darkness, mystery, and fragility.  - Melissa Rubin

BIO

Melissa Rubin, a New York-based artist for over three decades, recently relocated to southern Vermont. Her art has been featured in ARTnews Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Encaustic Arts Magazine, Wax Fusion, and on CBS This Morning. Melissa’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and has been used in performances and movie sets. The most recent venues to show her work are: Atlantic Gallery, NYC; John Molloy Gallery, NYC; Carter Burden Gallery, NYC; Art on Paper Fair at Pier 36, NYC; ODETTA Digital on SHIM Art Network on Artsy; Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY; Cerulean Arts, Philadelphia, PA; San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, CA; The Burgdorff Gallery of Southern Vermont College, Bennington, VT; Main Street Arts, Saxtons River, VT; Canal Street Art Gallery, Bellows Falls, VT. Melissa holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and an MS Ed. in Arts Leadership from Bank Street College of Education, also in NYC. She has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts and received a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan. In 2017 she was a participant in a Master Abstraction Residency at MASS MoCA, in North Adams, MA. Melissa taught art to children, undergraduate and graduate students for over twenty-five years. In 2012 she left teaching to devote herself fully to her art-making practice. Her art is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, NM and many of her works are in private collections in the United States and Europe. You can follow her on Instagram @melissarubinart and view her work on her website: melissarubinart.com