Ripple Effect, 18 x 24 inches
Melissa Parent
MELISSA PARENT
Brookfield, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
My work is about people and their intimate lives. I’m attracted to places, both interior and exterior, that contain evidence of the human touch. I study scenes that I think create portraits of people’s lives and what their lives are like. We are immersed today in a world of material culture and our possessions become important to us in different ways. They tell a story about who we are. I am inspired by history paintings of the past and I am intrigued by the obsessive collections and clutter that people accumulate in our world today. I am interested in the associations people have with their possessions and the sentimentality placed on those objects or on the idea of a precious object even if ephemeral.
In my work I explore the human tendency to be emotionally dependent on sentimental objects as a way of holding onto people or moments in time. Sentimental things become time markers and I see it as our way of feeling real, important and that our lives have purpose and meaning. My paintings are mainly done in oil are painted in a realist style occasionally steering towards surreal. By painting these spaces and objects and the people that own them, use them, or live amongst them, I create work that is about expression, emotion, is narrative based, self portrait based, and is generally based on the common psychological and emotional endeavors of everyday life.
Melissa Parent was born in South Central Massachusetts and received her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work mainly consists of oil paintings but ranges from drawings, mixed media, photography, and sculpture. Parent currently resides in Central Massachusetts where she does small to large-scale work on commission and exhibits locally.
“Mastery of watercolor, compelling composition, beautiful work!” — Amanda Kidd-Kestler