September 2021
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
Melody Croft
Artist Statement
I paint people in oil and watercolor and look inside of what appears to be seen. The common thread in my work is humanity and unlike the lens of a camera that objectively documents a moment in time and space, my lens subjectively observes and comments. My portraits and narrative paintings converge the real and imagined to examine the status quo and social norms of modern life. I invite viewers to look and consider the psychological, sociological, or emotional complexities of race, gender, age, and culture.
I often incorporate text into paintings. My master’s degree in reading education and the thirty years of reading aloud to children and being read to by children from storybooks where picture and text go hand-in-hand has influenced this creative choice. I use lettering from magazines and newspapers for the text, much like the ransom notes written by the kidnappers on the TV detective shows I watched as a kid. I am drawn to the various colors, sizes, and fonts of the cutout letters and how they enhance the visual impact of the overall painting and provide context, allowing the viewer to connect emotionally and intellectually.
I attribute my artistic style to the hundreds of young children I knew in my 30 years as a teacher. The daily interactions with children and most importantly, the moment-by-moment immersion into their concrete thinking rests on my canvases via simple lines, shapes, values, and textures in vivid colors set into a story.
My current work focuses on America’s racial climate and the #Black Lives Matter movement. As a whole, these paintings create an empathic narrative sparked from my many years as an elementary school teacher teaching, and also forming emotional connections with young African American children. Each work has led me to the next and has become a body of eighty paintings entitled TOO: An Orientation of Spirit.
The ten images below are watercolor and oil paintings from this collection and represent my two-and-a-half years creative journey of thoughts and emotions. The heart of this exhibition is TOO, meaning ALSO. It is the absent but implied word at the end of the statement Black Lives Matter and is the artistic lens woven throughout the work. Empathy resides within this small word. TOO is the essence of our humanity and the “superpower” that enables an orientation of spirit to occur; where empathy is found, racism dissolves.
With the knowledge that art is a form of consciousness, a vehicle of communication, TOO: An Orientation of Spirit embraces this premise of art as a vehicle for empathy and utilizes the power of the narrative image to inspire understanding and compassion. It honors my former students and communicates my desire to be an ally and take on their struggle as my own.
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
Melody Croft
Artist Statement
I paint people in oil and watercolor and look inside of what appears to be seen. The common thread in my work is humanity and unlike the lens of a camera that objectively documents a moment in time and space, my lens subjectively observes and comments. My portraits and narrative paintings converge the real and imagined to examine the status quo and social norms of modern life. I invite viewers to look and consider the psychological, sociological, or emotional complexities of race, gender, age, and culture.
I often incorporate text into paintings. My master’s degree in reading education and the thirty years of reading aloud to children and being read to by children from storybooks where picture and text go hand-in-hand has influenced this creative choice. I use lettering from magazines and newspapers for the text, much like the ransom notes written by the kidnappers on the TV detective shows I watched as a kid. I am drawn to the various colors, sizes, and fonts of the cutout letters and how they enhance the visual impact of the overall painting and provide context, allowing the viewer to connect emotionally and intellectually.
I attribute my artistic style to the hundreds of young children I knew in my 30 years as a teacher. The daily interactions with children and most importantly, the moment-by-moment immersion into their concrete thinking rests on my canvases via simple lines, shapes, values, and textures in vivid colors set into a story.
My current work focuses on America’s racial climate and the #Black Lives Matter movement. As a whole, these paintings create an empathic narrative sparked from my many years as an elementary school teacher teaching, and also forming emotional connections with young African American children. Each work has led me to the next and has become a body of eighty paintings entitled TOO: An Orientation of Spirit.
The ten images below are watercolor and oil paintings from this collection and represent my two-and-a-half years creative journey of thoughts and emotions. The heart of this exhibition is TOO, meaning ALSO. It is the absent but implied word at the end of the statement Black Lives Matter and is the artistic lens woven throughout the work. Empathy resides within this small word. TOO is the essence of our humanity and the “superpower” that enables an orientation of spirit to occur; where empathy is found, racism dissolves.
With the knowledge that art is a form of consciousness, a vehicle of communication, TOO: An Orientation of Spirit embraces this premise of art as a vehicle for empathy and utilizes the power of the narrative image to inspire understanding and compassion. It honors my former students and communicates my desire to be an ally and take on their struggle as my own.
Melody Croft began painting in 1993: first in watercolor and then eight years later she transitioned to oil painting. In 2004, a visit to an exhibit at The Georgia Museum of Art entitled “Coming Home: American Paintings from 1930-1950” motivated and focused Melody’s artistic style and voice. These narrative representational paintings, especially the work of the Social Realist, Ben Shahn, spoke to the social and cultural issues of that era by portraying the daily lives of ordinary people. At this point, Melody moved away from painting still lifes and landscapes and focused on narrative work that connected with human emotions.
Melody has been an exhibiting artist for sixteen years. Her work has been chosen in numerous exhibitions in Georgia, the Southeast, the Midwest, Chicago, and New York City. Several of Croft’s works have received awards. In 2020, Larry Ossei-Mensah, as the juror of the Lyndon House 45th Annual Juried Exhibition, presented a Merit Award to the painting, Learning Without Wisdom is Like a Load of Books on a Donkey’s Back. The Georgia Museum of Art selected Croft in 2012 as a winner in the Kress Project and published her winning painting in their book The Winning Entries, The Kress Project (Georgia Press 2013).
Melody’s paintings are published in several periodicals and on the cover of the book of poetry, A Thousand Scattered Moments. In 2018, Melody co-curated the exhibit, Resonance: a bi-sensory art exhibit at Oconee County Arts Foundation, Watkinsville, GA. Her first major solo exhibition, TOO: An Orientation of Spirit, occurred July 2021 at the Oconee County Arts Foundation.
Croft is a self-taught artist living in Athens, GA. She was born in Jackson, Minnesota and moved to the Southeast at age 11. Melody lives in Athens, Georgia and commutes daily to her art studio in Jefferson, GA. To learn more about Melody or to contact her, please visit her website at melodycroft.com
For inquiries contact the artists directly:
[email protected]
www.melodycroft.com
https://www.instagram.com/croftmelody/
[email protected]
www.melodycroft.com
https://www.instagram.com/croftmelody/