Melissa Eder Solo Exhibition
CICA Museum, Flexspace Section A
July 23 – 27, 2025
2025.7.23 – 27
Still Life with a View and Other Things
I art utilizes the genre of still life to investigate themes of beauty, nature, and artifice, juxtaposing interior psychological spaces with exterior views. My work is deeply informed by popular culture and personal experience. These works are mixed media created with acrylics, gouache, and photo collage (my images) as well as photo printed fabric and vinyl banners. They combine my photo-based works that document 99 cents store objects, tchotchkes and junk food which are meticulously cut out and collaged into vividly painted psychedelic spaces. The objects used are atypical. Instead of the conventional apples and oranges of Cezanne, I may use kitschy things that I feel a connection to. I also use different foods such as raw meat, fried chicken, cake and pizza. There is usually some type of window with a view in these images. The views are quite personal. They may be photographs of a place from my childhood or a current setting. Quite often, my work references my upbringing in the suburban New Jersey of the 70s. In this place, I have found a dystopia of broken promises – a land where modernity, comfort and technology helped to maintain the emptiness found within the banal and status quo.
I received my B.F.A. In Painting and Printmaking from the Parsons School of Design where I studied with Sean Scully and a M.F.A. In Combined Media from Hunter College where I studied with Robert Morris. My work has been shown both nationally and internationally in such places as the Bronx Museum, the Aperture Foundation, Every Woman Biennial, Humble Arts, Davis/Orton Gallery, Griffin Museum of Photography, University of Connecticut, Broadway Windows (New York University), Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, New York City and in Berlin, London, Rome and Korea. I was an artist-in-residence at the Henry Street Settlement, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Jentel Foundation in Banner, Wyoming, the Atlantic Center for the Arts with renowned photographer Graciela Iturbide and in Brasil on the Island of Ilhabela, The Art Center in Padula, Italy and at the Kolaj Institute in New Orleans. My work has been reviewed by the New York Times, Feature Shoot, the Huffington Post, the Collector Daily, VICE and others. I have participated in the Satellite Art Show in Miami and Art Fort Lauderdale. I am also an instructor of Critical Thinking for the City University of New York at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.
