Melissa Kretschmer - RULE Gallery

MELISSA KRETSCHMER

Melissa Kretschmer’s work exists somewhere between painting and sculpture. There are aspects of both that are inextricably linked: flatness and depth; color and matter; transparency, translucency and opacity; light and shadow. Materials have always been a primary interest to the artist, largely for their particular properties and differences. Color is not “applied” in any traditional colorist sense; the beautiful goldenness of beeswax, graphite’s slick grey-black shimmer in its natural state, or a deep rich darkness beneath a coat of wax. The color and textures of ordinary materials are infinitely more subtle when Kretschmer applies these materials to white paper and plywood.

Kretchmer’s geometric works give a sense of precision, but in truth they are not precise. There are imperfections throughout, a ragged edge of paper or wood, an uneven coating of wax, a smudge or dragging of graphite or a translucent spot where the paper becomes too-soaked in wax. While accuracy does not preclude imperfection, precision does.

Melissa Kretschmer lives and works in New York. She received a BFA and MFA from the Art Center College of Design, Passadena, California. In 2007, Kretschmer will have solo exhibitions at the Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, Galerie Tschudi, Glarus, Switzerland and the Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, France.




Melissa Kretschmer, Work on Paper no. 15, 2005, watercolor, graphite, and beeswax on paper.