Martin Mele

Martin Mele merges performance art and sculpture, creating mixed-media works—often in front of an audience—that harmonize and blend seemingly disparate objects and elements. By creating assemblages from what might otherwise be considered household clutter, like lawn chairs, pillows, wires, trash, or clothes, Mele derives unity from initial tension. Exemplary of this concept is Mele’s series of wall sculptures, reliefs constructed of assembled detritus constrained by pieces of stretched Lycra. Balanced between wall and Lycra, the works project a sense of precarious harmony, amongst the disparate elements and between the forces constraining them and those driving them apart.