Mel Tudisco: In her own words

My artwork is both concept and construction. The concepts that guide my work spring from an understanding and appreciation of abstraction. I am deeply inspired by the human experience. Each of my paintings starts rather furious with intuitive mark-making and moves from there into composition—shape, line, texture, form, and color. I strive for balance between simplicity and complexity, between intuition and technique. As a work progresses, I must slice through what I feel is nonessential. In this way I go in and out of a painting, adding, scraping, and scratching, until what remains is intentional and absolute. I can’t say I always know ahead of time what my artwork will reveal, but I know I have no choice but to look beyond the surface.

My world is made up of textures and layers. As a child living in the country, I spent hours looking for and picking up rusty nails from our sandy, hilly driveway. My dad would pay me a penny for each nail found. Two cents if they were larger nails. I can still see the textured layers of rust—the burnt orange, sienna, and hints of blue-green patina. These scraps of corroded metal intrigued me then and still do.

In my work as a painter, I am energized by the reaction and textures created on metal when I distort it with heat, pounding, or paint. Metal doesn’t move easily, and I relish the coaxing of it. I have a deep appreciation for the tactile and am compelled to produce structure and density where there once was smoothness.

I continue to be influenced by the Abstract Expressionists of the 20th century—Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Willem deKooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline. As well as Bay Area artistssuch as Richard Diebenkorn. They opened the doors to my creative selfexpression.

My work dwells at the intersection of painting and relief. I am committed to the visual language of abstract painting, and the elements of mixed media.