Mel Reese is an abstract formalist painter based in Brooklyn. Her work lives between the familiar and the intangible. Rooted in imagined landscapes, she traces the contours of land, body, and mind to conjure the ephemeral immediacy and precipitous nature of existing in today’s socio-political climate.

As a woman living in Trump’s vision of America, these paintings tell a tale of the battle between progress and destruction. Each painting carries a beautiful fragility illuminated by a looming darkness; like at any moment the landscape might split open and swallow the viewer whole. Reese utilizes an array of painting and drawing media such as acrylic paint, caran d’ache, and pigment sticks. Manipulation of each material creates a variety of textures, depths, and complex visual moments that combine to create a quiet yet ominous composition.

Reese’s works are a complex dichotomy precariously poised between the human experience and our crumbling world, held together in search of beauty.