James Mellick Retrospective
1970 to 2000
This photo was taken in 1969 in preparation for my college senior art exhibit. It shows my first sculpture and the first use of the bird form and wings; a motif that continues in my work today. The mustache at the time was a political statement and while my politics have changed, I still have the mustache. It was also cool to sit on railroad tracks at the time but fewer trains run today and the metaphor of risk is lost.
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"Totems" from Graduate Thesis Exhibit, 1970-1973 Each approximately 8' h. x 1' w. My Master of Fine Arts was in painting, but in graduate school my work was becoming more three dimensional as I explored a series of vertical shaped-canvas paintings. Pop artist and juror, Robert Indiana selected two totems for a purchase award for the Swope Museum in Terre Haute, IN in 1972. The structural ribbing of wood in the frames of these canvases led to the skeletal patterning of animal forms today. A collector lost three of these totems in a flood. |
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"Hanging Heart Torso", 1975 By the middle 1970's, I began to develop as a sculptor of wood with a series of torsos which carried content of the human condition. I was teaching at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire, a women's college at the time. Noted author and authority on 20th Century Art, Jan van der Marck, Director of the Hopkins Center, selected me for a group exhibit at Dartmouth College where I displayed my early totems and torsos. These early torsos had the pop art feeling but were minimalist in form. |
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"Wonder Woman Torso", 1978 Most of my early woods were what I could afford at the time, pine and redwood. I enjoyed the challenge of fitting forms together, such as the cape and breast plate. Early influences at this time were the sculptors Robert Strini and David Hostetler. |
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"Parrot-Phrase", 1982 Permanent Collection of the Schumacher Gallery at Capital University, Columbus, OH. Eleven exotic birds and one vulture rise on perches above a shaped-canvas grid, based on the floor plan of the Greek Orthodox Church. This award winning Sculpture was my first large installation and it spun off a business of over 250 sales of painted wood parrots around the country.
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"Stations of the Spirit", 1983 Available for Purchase I returned to the totem series as free-standing, boat forms so that the aesthetic of the ribbed framing was visible. The spiritual presence of these are ceremonial in nature, like Viking burial ships standing on end. |
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"Road Angel", 1986 Available for Purchase Maybe it is a little bit insect and part motorcycle, but I had the reclining figure in mind, inspired by a Henry Moore exhibit. I enjoy composing abstractly, drawing and designing lines in space whether they be abstract or representational. The style is consistent in either direction because structure and composition are important factors in both. |
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"Arsenal", 1986 Available for Purchase Our society is fascinated with weapons. This elevates them to an aesthetic level of ceremonial objects. These could be from the past or the future. The contradiction between decoration and mystery; between beauty and danger, is intended in the absurdity of weapons becoming art. This installation has won several major awards. |
Crazy Horse, 1996, Poplar and copper, 17" x 32" x 12", (c) James Mellick, collection of An American Craftsman Gallery, NYC
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