Melissa Dadourian
Melissa Dadourian
Workspace Program Resident 2023
In the Studio
My work is at the intersection of painting, object making, and immersive installation. I use a variety of materials such as vintage threads, hand-dyed fabrics, burlap, canvas, clay, paint, and pigmented paper pulp.I explore my fascinations with domesticity and abstraction through shape, color, and texture, as well as beauty, humor, and pattern. I welcome the potential for unraveling. My colors spill and unfold as something uncontainable. I allow contradictions to coexist in this tension, where what is soft is also firm, what is loose is also tight, and what is masculine is also feminine.
- Melissa Dadourian, 2023 Workspace Artist Statement
Melissa Dadourian creates intuitive, playful compositions of colorful found and constructed forms. She maintains a personal tie to her found materials, often collecting them from her parents’ home or other locations with significance. Dadourian enjoys feminizing traditionally masculine structures, creating soft, colorful textiles from Brutalist architectural references. At Dieu Donné. Dadourian created a series of textural, abstract works with large swatches of pigmented linen pulp, stenciled grids of boxes or lines, embedded or wet collaged pieces of fabric, or debased and cut out geometric forms. Operating both as independent units and as an abstract assemblage, Dadourian’s works reference the grid while continuously disrupting and challenging it.
About the Artist
Melissa Dadourian received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Hunter College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Armenia, Brazil, Chicago, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Texas. She has been included in exhibitions at Gold/montclair*, NJ; L’Space, NYC; MoCA Westport, CT; ACCEA/Yerevan, Armenia; Albany Airport; the Dorsky Museum; the University of Buffalo, NY; The Cedar Crest College, PA; Susan Eley Gallery in Hudson, NY as well as Bravin Lee Projects in NYC. She has been written about in Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Time Out NY, Create! Magazine, Artspiel, Textiel Magazine, Fiber Art Now, View Publications, and included in the upcoming book “CLOTH” by Lena Corwin. Dadourian has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Dieu Donné Papermill, Hewnoaks, MASS MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Textile Arts Center, American Academy in Rome and Citè Internationale des Artes in Paris. Dadourian lives and works in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley.
For more information, please visit her website.