Melissa Staiger
“Finding the Sun”
May 25 — June 30, 2024
Melissa Staiger - Finding The Sun
Melissa Staiger’s work embraces the hard edges and meticulous arrangement of gestures, shapes and lines. Through the layering of textures and structures, she crafts sculptural paintings exploring themes of relationships, patterns, and dynamic shifts in movement. Mimicking organic forms, her colorful fresco-like layers exude a spirit of sensitivity and harmony.
As part of an extended southern road trip, Melissa visited Birmingham as The Old Bailey Gallery’s third artist-in-residence. Her solo show Finding The Sun explored themes of following the light and traveling toward the radiant source of life and vitality. Her series of acrylic-on-panel paintings presented a pathway to explore the endless possibilities and embrace what unfolds. The show symbolized the artistic journey that propels her further into uncharted territories, sparking new ideas and discoveries. Her May 2024 residency serendipitously coincided with Sun Ra week and her solar-inspired paintings took on new meaning in the context of Birmingham’s musical and spiritual heritage.
Melissa Staiger
Melissa Staiger (b.1978, Louisville, KY) earned a BFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, MD; an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
Staiger has had solo exhibitions at the Pratt Institute, SCPS Art Gallery, Kent Place Gallery in Summit, NJ, and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Upcoming at the Old Bailey Gallery in Birmingham, Alabama, May 2024, titled “Finding the Sun”.
She has been included in exhibitions at Art Cake, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Cementa Festival, Cuchfritos Gallery, Equity Gallery, Ground Floor Gallery, The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, Mono Practice, The Painting Center, Peep Space, Renée Riccardo of Arena, Schema Projects, Stand4 Gallery, Transmitter Gallery, Trestle Gallery, TSA, Ventana 244, Underdonk, and The Wassaic Project.
The artist was nominated and attended Freight & Volume’s DNA Artist Residency in Provincetown, MA, Robert Rauschenberg Artist Residency in Captiva, Florida, and attended The Wassaic Project Residency in New York. She is a member of the American Abstract Artists and art collective S-T-R-E-A-M-I-N-G.
Staiger lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
