Kathleen Melian

Region: Pacific Coast

Website: http://kathleenmelian.com

City / State: Los Angeles, CA

I invent opulent interiors, using rich color and sensual paint to create pictures that capture both luxury and success while suggesting a nightmarish underbelly. I present idyllic spaces that have gone awry. Each painting remains unresolved, flawed, and deteriorating, although evidence of this is suppressed by lush adornment. The scenes deliver a feeling that things are not quite as they seem, a hint of desperation concealed by order, taste, and ritual. Flawlessness gives way to underlying falsity as the appearance of a well-lived life begins to shift underfoot.

I am interested in this duality of mythological culture and an unsound reality unable to evade detection. The collision of the two provides potential for rupture. The line between reality and falsity becomes blurred and they mash up to form a luscious, murky soup. Society becomes a place of myth and artifice, both terrifying and sublime.