My most faithful reader (yes, it’s my mom) requested that I post some pictures of the paintings from my art show at CityArt Gallery in September. At first I was all, “if my readers don’t come to my show, then they can’t see my art,” but then I grew up. So I’ve decided to give you a virtual tour of the show. I’m including every painting featured at the show along with my artist statement.
The first place that I called home was a small town in Thailand called Saraburi. It was a town in the country where a variety of animals could be found. It was there that I held my first puppy, and discovered my love of drawing. As children tend to do, I drew the things that I cared about most. Mostly, they were pictures of my family.
I’ve often heard that to write well, you have to write what you know. I think that artists have to create works about things that they care about too. The work you see before you all springs from an internal well of experiences both good and bad. The landscapes chronicle the difficulty of calling two separate countries “home.” Many of the other paintings are a narrative of my summer. I painted some of the significant events while showing how I feel about each one. Many of the images appear sweet, but there is also a darkness behind each one.
PS I’m now on twitter (@melodyjmartin), so you can follow me if you care to. Don’t worry, I will do my best to call all of my updates “tweets” instead of “twitters.” If I called them “twitters” I would feel like a twit, and people would titter. I’ll stop before I say something inappropriate.
