Joan Melnick Hand Signed Publisher Proof Lithograph:"Coral Series -- 27"

Artist: Joan Melnick
Title: Coral Series -- 27
Size: 29.5" x 21.5"
Edition : Publisher Proof
Medium: Lithograph
Year: 1982
Artist Biography: Born in New York in 1942, Joan Melnick began painting at an early age. She studied Interior Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and then went on to study printmaking and painting at New Paltz State University, where she recieved her Masters in Art. It was the Adirondack Mountains and their unique rock formations as well as a deep love for the Impressionists that was most influential to her work. Upon the completion of her studies and several student exhibitions, she moved to Manhattan to begin her professional career as a painter. During the sixties Joan taught art in various school programs and began exhibiting her etchings in and around New York, showing at the American Greeting Card Gallery in the Pan American Building, New York, in 1968; at the Anne Leonard Gallery in Woodstock; and the Open House Gallery in Katona, New York, through 1969. Living and working in New York City had a very strong influence on Joan's paintings. The clarity of color became much stronger and the image much larger, as well as more simplistic. But she still maintained the landscape. She continued exhibiting in New York City at the Connection Gallery and the Metamorphis Gallery in group shows in 1972-73. Her group show at the Levitan I & II Gallery in 1973 was her first exposure to the Soho Gallery scene. In 1974 Joan started teaching at Lehman College in the Bronx and Kean College in New Jersey, where she was in several faculty shows. On the island of Cozumel in Mexico she discovered the tranquility of a whole new world under the sea. It was at this point that her paintings moved from landscape to the underworld of the sea, to capture its silence and unique sensual mystery, as well as the spaciousness of the all-encompassing water, the volumetric tension of the underwater currents, and the diffused and refracted light which penetrates such depths. She makes it possible for the viewer to submerge visually and psychologically to encounter the unusual effects of light and water, and the amorphic qualities and delicate coloration of rock and coral formation. Joan Melnick is considered a colorist, extraordinarily sensitive to the expressive and evocative roles that color plays in art and nature. Usually subtle and fragile, sometimes direct and bold, she handles her transitions from light to shadow with absolute precision. She controls the delicate balance of color, light, and form in a painterly parallel to organic growth. Melnick handles the relationship of viewer to pictorial forms and space much as the diver experiences marine life; she creates a pictorial ambiance which embraces the observer, surrounding him with colors, tones, and forms that place him firmly in the center of her painted universe. He feels himself at one with his surroundings, and yet curiously detached from its quiet harmonies. He enters a world where he is a visitor only. Joan has continued working with the coral forms and has been exhibiting her work in one-woman shows in the U.S. and Paris, France. She has also had work published in Penthouse Magazine; The Whole Sex Catalogue; and the Kitchen Almanac.
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