Exhibitions

MELISSA WILKINSON: COPIA

Beverly and Sam Ross Gallery (Christian Brothers University) / 650 East Pkwy S. August 7, 2019 - September 11, 2019

Melissa Wilkinson

Melissa Wilkinson is a painter and associate professor of art at Arkansas State University-Jonesboro. She was born in suburban Chicago and received degrees from Western Illinois University (BFA) and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (MFA). Her work has been featured in wide-reaching publications throughout the country including three editions of New American Paintings. She has shown in various galleries nationally and internationally, including South Korea and India, and has won numerous awards, grants, and fellowships throughout her career. Her work is included in private collections throughout the country and abroad, and she currently exhibits at Greg Thompson Gallery and M2 Gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas. She paints and lives in the Memphis area.

The paintings collected in Copia relate to Wilkinson's stated interest in dichotomies: obscuring and revealing, attraction and repulsion, good and evil, the past and the present. 

I am deeply interested in the interaction of parts and am attracted to tactile physicalities in an increasingly technological and dehumanized time. I appropriate imagery from 19th century naturalist illustrations, bodies, and typically sensual subject matter to develop a pastiche that fractures both into the surreal and suggestive.