Melissa Brown
New York, USA
Visual
Artist in Residence, 2026
↗ www.melissabrown.tv
Artist Statement
I believe that reality is much more complex than we perceive it to be. Déja Vu, synchronous events, premonitions, and double takes are all emanations of this inherent complexity. As a result of emerging technologies the necessity to slide between real and virtual realms in every aspect of daily life amplifies this complexity, turning an ordinary day into a waking dream haunted by synchronistic symbols, idealized memory fragments, and distortions of physical space. I have developed an approach to painting that incorporates disparate modes of perception that include digital photography, painting from life and also from memory. I collage these modes as a way to approximate the embodied sensation of living in a multiverse.
Place is the primary inspiration for the content of my work and my motifs. My goal is to make visible what is otherworldly and overlooked in quotidian experience and how these details point to the unresolved mysteries of time and space.
While at Headlands
The California landscape has been the backdrop for America’s financial, technological and spiritual manifest destinies. While at the Headlands, I want to immerse myself in this storied West Coast landscape. American Utopianism originates from this landscape, including the creation of our on-line, digital world, which in 2026 shares equal authority with our physical world. My goal is to develop a series of paintings, drawings and short animations that visualize unseen forces that inform human memory and perception. I will make on-the-spot paintings from life as well as table-top stop-motion animations that recount observed and perceived experiences within the landscape.
Selected Work
