Artist Conversation #2

Artist: Melissa Flores
Exhibition: Near Far
Media: Charcoal
Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Dutzy Gallery
Email: melissaflores121@gmail.com
Instagram: melissaflores.art

Melissa Flores is an undergraduate trying to reach her BFA in Drawing and Painting. Some of their interests and ideas that they like to explore are American consumerism and in this work specifically, they explored growing up and how memories fade over time which fits into the exhibition title Near Far and how some memories perhaps are near and others are farther.

This art piece was black and white and they used charcoal. It appeared to have a sort of soft texture because of the thin horizontal and vertical lines behind the main object which was the girl with soft skin and soft clothes. The work was pretty big as it was about half of my size and I’m 5’9 so it allowed me to see what I was looking at more clearly. The work had realism because it depicted a girl and a ballon in one drawing and a bird in the other which seemed pretty realistic like many of our memories. The texture and the creases in the clothes and the balloon made the work seem more realistic because it had a lot of detail making it even more realistic.

This work encompasses the ideas that our memories fade over time which is depicted by the cutting of the balloon that will float away as well as the bird that could at any moment fly away. I asked if you could just look at one drawing and still get the same ideas or if you had to look at both. They said it would be better to look at both as they go hand in hand with each other and demonstrate the idea more powerfully if they’re put next to each other. Her drawings discussed the elusive nature of memories which could also be referenced by her older self portrait with a balloon that perhaps represents a memory as a child.

After discussing with the artist and understanding their ideas better, I viewed these drawings as what she said. Our memories fade over time and I could really see how this was represented by the bird and the cutting of the balloon. I thought it was a really interesting topic as well because often times I think of memories that I forgot about or I perhaps don’t even remember some memories although I wish I did. The soft texture and the black and white in my opinion resemble my memories quite well because the images of my memories are sort of faint as they are never really strong and I can clearly see them. Instead they’re sort of hazy and not really in color. Even memories that weren’t too long ago are like what the artist discusses in how memories fade away and they even become harder to remember. These art pieces although realistic, had so much depth into them that if I never discussed with the artist, I perhaps wouldn’t have understood the idea behind them.