Details:

This painting turns an image of a plant under a microscope into a stand-alone figure. This work was inspired by artist Paul Klee’s description of a painter’s task as “not to reproduce the visible, but rather make it visible."
Unframed
Signed

① Artwork:

Internal registers

This painting turns an image of a plant under a microscope into a stand-alone figure. This work was inspired by artist Paul Klee’s description of a painter’s task as “not to reproduce the visible, but rather make it visible.” The composition also uses the same color palette Klee used in his work Ancient Sounds: Abstract on Black—evoking Klee’s attempt to render ancient sound through color palettes, a generative process that references the rhythms of growth and sonic pitch in nature.

Encompassing paintings and drawings, Braathen's work seamlessly transitions between elements of skillful figuration and expressive and ambient abstraction. A unique blend of genres, traditions and technique, the artist's style melds close observations of both nature and human dynamics with a theatricality tuned to an acute emotional register. Braathen’s work explores life’s constant becomings in compositions that feature bodied abstraction, meditative paint swirls and masterful grooves of balanced coloration.

Specs:

30 inches
40 inches

③ Artist:

Melinda Braathen

Melinda Braathen’s work combines close observation of nature with an acutely attuned emotional sensibility and theatricality. Blending genres, traditions and techniques, the artist’s paintings and drawings seamlessly transition between skillful figuration and abstraction. Braathen’s compositions employ meditative swirls of paint and balanced coloration to depict the flux of life and its constant becomings.

BIO:

Melinda Braathen was born in Oslo, Norway in 1985. The artist received a BFA from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York in 2007. Braathen has also studied painting at the New York Studio School in New York City.

Exhibitions that have shown Braathen’s work have taken place at: Baert Gallery in Los Angeles, California; Eastside International in Los Angeles, California; Last Projects in Los Angeles, California; Coaxial Gallery in Los Angeles, California; and Kwadrat in Berlin, Germany.

Braathen lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Melinda Braathen:
Internal registers, 2022
Oil on canvas
40.0 × 30.0 inches /