Further images
Peace bridge tickets come in a book with a perforated edge. The Customs agent tears one out and she gives the officer her full attention as the script is delivered, "Citizenship?" "anything to declare?" If they believe her answers are true, she is free to enter the country. The beauty of the bridge is the view of the water below and the arc of the drive over it. Looking back, she recognizes fragments of herself essential to the whole. Traversing the depths she rescues the abandoned - shame drained, a sovereign citizen exists.
-Melora Griffis
July 2021
Melora Griffis' peace bridge is a large 56 x 72 inch mixed media work on muslin in acrylic, fabric, glitter and thread on muslin. A figurative landscape depicting a bridge which spans the width of the work, deep, nuanced blues in the foreground contrast with the lighter, saturated blue of the sky. The bridge itself is built with bits of fabric, the delicacy of lace and sequins and paint belying the strength of the steel structure. Griffis states, "sewn blocks of fabric intermingling with paint and glitter engender a soft celebratory empowerment to the rigid, bare boned steel structure (…) A bridge connects what came before with what lies ahead, crossing over ever changing and boundary-less water-allegorical in its nature." Holding a multitude of memories for the artist, the Peace Bridge - a structure connecting the United States and Canada - is activated here as a visual metaphorical device.
Frequently working across media, and creating dimensionality with pieces of fabric hand stitched to the painted surfaces, Griffis' work delves into memory, and she creates a compellingly complex rich psychological narrative using unconventional methodology with her choices around composition, color and materials. Her playful alliance with the metaphoric implications of form and texture invites slow contemplation, a kind of reveling in her work's powerful, off-kilter beauty.
In his ARTnews review of Griffis' solo exhibition at 571 Projects NYC, critic Doug McClemont wrote, "With their (...) dramatic use of color, Griffis' works conveyed the impression that memories and retellings can be strangely cloaked and yet, nevertheless, poignant."
Born in New York City, Griffis received her BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts (Montpelier, VT). She has had solo exhibitions at the Pamela Williams Gallery (Amagansett, NY), Lizan Tops Gallery and AE Gallery (both East Hampton, NY), Whitney Art Works (Greenport, NY), The Re Institute (Millerton, NY) and 571 Projects (New York, NY). Her work has been included in group shows at Ethan Cohen Fine Art, (New York, NY) Edward Thorp Gallery (New York, NY), White Columns (New York, NY), Bowman/Bloom Gallery (New York, NY), Michael Steinberg (New York, NY), Silas Marder (Bridgehampton, NY), Ille Arts, (Amagansett, NY), Sara Nightingale Gallery, (Sag Harbor, NY) and Boltax Gallery (Shelter Island, NY) among others. Griffis has received fellowships from Le Moulin à Nef (Auvillar, France), Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Schwandorf, Germany), the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, (Ithaca, NY), Schloss Pluschow (Mecklenberg-Vorpommern, Germany), The Edward F. Albee Foundation (Montauk, NY) and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (Amherst, VA). Melora Griffis lives and works in New York City.
