571 Projects is pleased to present Melora Griffis: anywhere, far away. This online exhibition features new and recent paintings on paper and canvas of far flung sunny landscapes and seascapes by artist Melora Griffis. From boats and canoes, to beaches and lushly imaginative tropical caves, each work is executed with the artist’s characteristic masterful gesture and vivid palette. Anywhere, faraway invites contemplation and escape.
Alive with immediacy, Melora Griffis’ paintings are mysterious, deploying confident brushstrokes, delicate veils of paint, and surprising areas of iridescence and glitter. The surreal, dream-like “cave” paintings, such as beyond all walking, imaginary cave, and pool of light luxuriate in rich palette and uncanny light effects. The cave is a recurring visual device for Griffis, laden with ideas of primordial shelter and symbolizing inner states. Invariably a portal of light or darkness acts as a prism conveying transition, movement, and reflection. In beyond all walking (2017, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 38 x 40 in.), we look from a low viewpoint inside a cave across a glittering pool reflecting the sun and sky, toward a remote tree line framed by the mouth of the cave. Delicate blue and pink float over this far landscape, a distant promise of evening. A kind of poignancy emanates from her work, resonating with the viewer. Memories and dreams, emerging from the unconscious, play a painterly role in her compositions. “I work intuitively, leaning toward an organic mark, celebrating a textured, uneven, layered surface where serendipitous action transpires,” Griffis states.
A native New Yorker, Griffis received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts (Montpelier, VT) and her BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design. She has had solo exhibitions at the The Re Institute (Millerton, NY), Pamela Williams Gallery (Amagansett, NY), Lizan Tops Gallery and AE Gallery (both East Hampton, NY), Whitney Art Works (Greenport, NY), and 571 Projects (New York, NY). Her work has been included in group shows at 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 Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Schwandorf, Germany), Le Moulin à Nef (Auvillar, France), 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).
This exhibition is viewable on our website and via Artsy.
