The art of Hopewell-based artist Frances Melvin will be on display in two different exhibitions this month.
One with the Creative Collective, will be at the Gourgaud Gallery in Cranbury from Aug. 3 to 24, with a reception on Aug. 5. The other will also be a group show at the Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge called “The Earth Speaks.” That will run from Aug. 4 to 26, with a reception on Aug. 7.
Melvin attended the NYC Rudolf Steiner School for early education and later attended LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts. She graduated from Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and from the fine arts graduate program at School of Visual Arts in New York City. She worked with and was influenced by her teachers, realist Marion Miller, abstract artist Denzil Hurley, feminist and social artist Nancy Spero, and sculptor and installation artist Petah Coyne.
After teaching art for several years in New York, she worked as a graphic artist and video producer. She also started a film festival called Funfest in New York City’s East Village.
After moving to Hopewell with her husband Iain and then giving birth to son Milo several years later, she returned to painting.
Melvin says her work embodies a love of color field painting combined with realism and story-telling. Her early facination with the color theory and work of Josef Albers and Rothko, as well as Wolf Kahn’s naive landscapes, inspire her work. She says the practice of meditation also informs her painting.
