Exhibitions

MELISSA DUNN: THE EARTHWORM AND THE HAWK

Crosstown Arts / 1350 Concourse Ave. February 9 - April 28th

Melissa Dunn

The Earthworm and the Hawk is the overlap between two states of being.

In the private and non-verbal world of Melissa Dunn’s sketchbook, she burrows deep, generating drawings intuitively from her imagination. As the pages fill up, she steps back and shifts perspective, becoming more objective. The lay of the land comes into sharp focus. Here she maps out, poses questions, and acts decisively.

Because these modalities are distinct from one another, it takes time and patience to figure out ways of unifying them. Their push/pull tendencies can disrupt as much as facilitate. It’s a continual process. Like two rocks rubbed together just the right way, the friction between the searcher and the strategist can generate sparks or a full blown explosion.

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Melissa Dunn is from Memphis, Tennessee. She spent her early years immersed in the city’s music scene, splitting her time between playing with bands and making visual art. Although she still plays guitar and sings, today music is mostly an inward-facing part of her studio life, with an audience of sketchbooks, drawings, and paintings, which she refers to as her “highly energized objects.”