UNDERSTORY Recent Work by Melissa Rubin

Tuesday, May 28th through Saturday, June 15th, 2024

Opening reception: Saturday, June 1st, 2:00-5:00pm

Atlantic Gallery is very pleased to present the solo exhibition UNDERSTORY: Recent Work by Melissa Rubin. Melissa’s second solo exhibition at Atlantic Gallery, UNDERSTORY will feature works ranging from 2021-24. 

UNDERSTORY is an ode to a place that simply still exists; it is a meditative, emotional and visual study of the natural environment where Melissa Rubin lives and works, in southeastern Vermont. The world below the canopy of the trees, the understory, is teeming with life and decay. The layers of raw materials become deep inspiration for her imagery and approach to creating her art. Melissa’s work is comprised of many layers of papers, monoprints, paints, and various organic materials, such as wax, powdered pigments, dried grasses, branches, carbon, ash, silver leaf, marble dust and clay. Evocative of forest underlayers, the imagery alludes to entangled, interconnected webs of trees, branches, membranes, neural networks, flowing springs, as well as the infinite night sky of Vermont. The understory can also be utilized in a literary sense; it is the architecture that undergirds, gives meaning to, and supports a story. Like the world below the canopy, it is moveable and fluid. In addition to the physical environment, Melissa’s work reflects the expansive, psychological experience of space. Exploring the terrain and its impact on her relationship to the environment, Melissa creates pictorial references to textures, branches, decay, and growth, all woven together to form a depiction of her outer and inner landscape. The media she uses functions as her personal vocabulary of expression, as proxy to emotional states of mind. She consciously works with materials that help to facilitate a sense of light, darkness, mystery, and possibility. 

Melissa Rubin, a New York-based artist for over 3 decades, recently relocated to Vermont. Her art has been featured in ARTnews Magazine, Encaustic Arts Magazine, Wax Fusion, and on CBS This Morning. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions. The most recent venues to show her work are Atlantic Gallery, NYC;  Carter-Burden Gallery, NYC; John Molloy Gallery, NYC; MAPSpace, Port Chester, NY; Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY; Canal Street Art Gallery, Bellows Falls, VT. Melissa has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and she received a Fulbright Teacher Fellowship to Japan. You can follow her on Instagram @melissarubinart and view her work on her website: melissarubinart.com