Using a pop-art style, Melanie Kehoss depicts remembered and imagined scenarios of human interaction.  Through use of silhouettes, viewers may project their own memories and emotions onto the scenes.  Color names on paint swatches and patterns on scrapbook paper, with their optimistic and nostalgic overtones, have inspired the corresponding imagery.  These scenes alternately reinforce and belie this optimism.  The warmth of human connection is often tinged with tension, awkwardness, and banality.  Even in a society saturated with consumption, however, those awkwardly real moments may be what we live for.

The use of both traditional and digital media adds layers of meaning to formally simple images.  Viewers will first find the images interesting, and then discover the unusual processes involved in making them.

Kehoss' artwork echoes the work of Alex Katz, whose flat, isolated portraits bring to mind advertising and film.  Yet the use of narrative, cut-outs, and installation are reminiscent of Kara Walker and Arturo Herrera.  Like these two contemporary artists, Kehoss strives to create culturally charged images that surpass in meaning their simplicity of form. 

"Luminous Gleaning"

Public Art