Melissa Dunn’s studio is in her house in Memphis, TN, where she was born and has spent most of her life. She teaches painting and drawing at Flicker Street Studio and Carpenter Art Garden, an afterschool art program. She was a founding member of the Artist Advisory Council at ArtsMemphis, which developed the ArtsAccelerator Grant. She’s published a zine with Walls Divide Press and her work has been featured in the Pinch Literary Journal and Memphis Current Magazine.

My paintings are based on drawings that climb to the top of my drawing pile, flutter around my studio in search of the landing pad that turns them into a whole other thing. They’re a record of the near miss, the possible crash, my place in the mix of life. I’m playing with chunkiness, warbling edges next to straight edges, empty space, fussiness, order, colors having their say, and how decisions layer up to questions and answers and then more questions. They’re conversations in my head and me without a head.