Melissa Resch:

Flora: The Heroes of Beauty

Painting allows me to express my love of color and texture. My process includes many layers of paint as I search for vibrant color relationships that mimic more what I feel than see in response to the world around me, most usually things I find in the landscape.

This series of abstract oil paintings on wood and canvas attempts to capture the essence of flowers in ways I experience them. During my process I discovered that a flower can be represented as simply as a swatch of color above a line. Bits of color atop several lines might represent a bouquet or a garden. Even when flowers are abstracted, some colors and shapes evoke certain species or rituals in which flowers are traditionally used.

Flowers are used for decoration in every part of our lives, as well as a tool to convey our deepest emotions. It might be argued that flowers are the most consistent source of inspiration and symbol of beauty known to mankind, classifying them as the true heroes of beauty.

>> View Press Release (2012)

ARTIST BIO

Melissa Resch was born in 1965 into a US Navy family and lived in several US states until her family settled in Indiana in 1975. As a child and teenager Melissa expressed herself creatively through music: voice and cello.

After four years of teaching elementary school in Lafayette, Indiana, and after residing briefly in the UK, Massachusetts and Korea, Melissa began her creative pursuits. She moved to Boston to attend Massachusetts College of Art and earned a BFA with Distinctive Honors in Painting in 1999.

In 2002 Melissa relocated to Provincetown, Massachusetts, and established herself as an artist of several mediums: oils, watercolors, encaustics, printmaking, textiles and found objects.

Between 2003 and 2008, Melissa split her time between Provincetown and Australia and now resides full-time in Provincetown. While in Australia she was an artist in residence in two Western Australia museums and held three solo exhibitions. In 2008 Melissa graduated with a master's degree in painting from University of Tasmania.

When she is not painting, Melissa works part time for the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod in Prevention and Education and for the Provincetown International Film Festival and Whaler's Wharf Cinema.

Education
2008 University of Tasmania, Australia, MCA, painting
1999 Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, BFA, painting
1988 Taylor University, Upland, IN, BS, elementary education

Experience
2005 Artist in Residence, Flax Mill Museum, Western Australia
2004 Artist in Residence, Pioneers Historic Museum, Western Australia
2000 Academic Liaison, National Women’s Caucus for Art, Boston Chapter
1999 Teaching Assistant, Painting Department, Massachusetts College of Art

Juried Exhibitions
2007 Grand Opening, Rivers Edge, Longford, Tasmania
2005 Provincetown Artists, Little Gorgeous Things, Provincetown
2004 Illustrating the Sea with a View, Miami Beach, Florida
2003 Art With a View I, Miami Beach, Florida
2003 Gala Opening, Dwellingup Gallery, Dwellingup, Western Australia
2002 Cape Cod Oils, Cottage, Provincetown
2001 Thalia Mara’s 90th Birthday Exhibition, Madison Gallery, Jackson, Mississippi
2000 Hallowed Grounds, International Society, Boston

Solo Exhibitions
2011 In the Harbor, New York City
2010 Provincetown: Light, Land, Sea, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2008 Inspired by a Tasmanian Gasometer, Provincetown
2007 Iconometer, Tasmania, Australia
2006 Colour En Masse, Bridgetown, Western Australia
2004 Spoken For, Dwellingup, Western Australia
2004 Cape Oils, Provincetown
2004 Altered States, Provincetown
2003 October Sketchbooks, Provincetown
2003 The Cape in Copper, Provincetown
2003 Twelve of Twelve, Provincetown
2003 Provincetown Sketchbooks, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2003 100 Drawings, Provincetown

Awards
1999 Graduation with Highest Distinction & Painting Departmental Honors
1999 Pearl Paint/Foundation Auction Award
1996-1998 Presidential Mentor Program
1996 Mohan-Dow Merit Scholar Award