NIGHT VISION(s)

Recent Work by Melissa Rubin

with a poetic response by Polly Walshe 

September 3rd – September 21st, 2019
Opening Reception: Thurs., September 5th, 5:30pm-8:00pm
Closing reception: Sat., September 21st, 2:00pm-5:00pm

NIGHT VISION(s)is a visual exploration of the nocturnal, tonal world, informed by the artist’s struggle with insomnia. In this series of works, Rubin delves into her cycle of sleeplessness, emphasizing the repetition of evenings awake, of light diffused yet shining through the darkness, creating a muffled luminosity through her use of mixed-media, which includes graphite, cold wax, metal leaf, powdered pigments, and oils.

Awake hours into the night, the body is exhausted but the restless mind, and eyes, are not. There is an endless play of dark and light, of transparent blacks, grays and patinaed whites, cutting through the night, making its way onto the walls, and into the artist’s psyche. Fragmented light slices through the windows, broken up by slatted blinds, as horizontals repeat and divide the visual plane, allowing glimpses of other worlds, just beyond reach, hovering before, but not fully, in sleep.

Within the exhibition there is a dialogue (akin to a‘call and response’)between Rubin’s works and the writing of British poet Polly Walshe. Admiring each other’s work on Instagram, Rubin invited Walshe to express her response to these artworks through a series of poems: word and images are combined to give voice to the ambiguous space between night and day, between consciousness and restorative sleep.

Melissa Rubin, a New York City-based artist for over three decades, has previously exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions at the John Molloy Gallery in NYC, the Pelham Art Center, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art and many other venues. Her work has been featured in ARTnews Magazine, on CBS This Morning, and has been used in performances and movie sets. She was a recent participant at the Master Abstraction Residency at MASS MoCA. This is her first solo show at Atlantic Gallery. You can view more of her work at:
melissarubinart.com and follow her on Instagram: @melissarubinart

Polly Walshe was born in London and now lives in Oxford, UK.  She is a published poet and an exhibiting portrait painter. She studied Classics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she specialized in Greek lyric poetry of the 6th century BC. Her poems have been published many times in the Spectator magazine (London) and she has been placed in national and international poetry competitions. She was recently appointed as a member of Oxford Art Society.  Her first novel, The Latecomer (Random House, 1997) won a Betty Trask Award. You can view Polly’s work here: www.pollywalshe.com and follow her on Instagram: @pollywalshepainter

A full-color catalog will be available.