Melinda Braathen

Region: Pacific Coast

Website: https://www.melindabraathen.com

City / State: Los Angeles , CA

  The atmosphere is a hidden protagonist in my paintings. With its ever-changing nature it casts information of varying qualities and intensities into the environment, creating a disturbance either quietly or abruptly.

Sometimes it is the presence of a person or the conjuring of a person that transforms the atmosphere; their memories, sensations, and emotions become ephemerally tied to the rhythms of the landscape in unforeseen ways. This can give rise to a mysterious light, a new source of movement, a temporal shift, or a denatured color palette. In this way, my paintings are more re of the subject’s psychology—or of the atmosphere passing through—than the landscape’s actual textures and colors.