Melissa Shelly

With strong training in the tenets of classical realism, Melissa painted representational oil paintings for many years until she felt the need to breath new life into her work. She loves the freedom and immediacy afforded her when working abstractly and particularly enjoys abstracting the figure through perceived design armatures and color harmonies. Since most art lies somewhere along the continuum between abstraction and observation, it is often difficult to know where one rubric ends and the other continues. For Melissa, it has more to do with the emotional connection she has with the work and its authenticity. Her background in interior design and psychology has informed her design intuition allowing her to tap into unconscious feelings that she translates to the canvas. She lives and works in Manhattan, kept company by her two Maine Coon cats.

Submitted by BOOM Contemporary