Jan Melka
Jan Melka, Halfeway House (Hafe In Hafe Out), 2022, site-specific installation, 190 x 186 x 120 cm, wood, canvas, plexiglass, cardboard, charcoal, oil paint, exhibition view ‘Garage Band', courtesy Adrien Thibault.
Jan Melka (b. 1995) is a French-American visual artist based in Paris. Her practice mainly explores the transmutation of the body and its limits in space. The identity of the subjects represented is constantly and evolves constantly. They are driven by the construction of repetitive figures. The human form is destructured and the baroque geometry of the arabesques accentuated. Imperfect features, inverted perspectives, paralogism, contingency or corrupted materials are the predominant themes in the in the artist's work. His compositions frequently incorporate poor or neglected materials that allow him to handle them without constraint. With them, Jan Melka resorts to this aesthetics by awakening memories and arousing nostalgia, at the tangent of the intelligible and the sensitive and of deep thought.
Biography
Exhibitions
Melka's work has been shown in monographic and group exhibitions, including: Spaceless Gallery (2022, Paris), Biquini Wax (2022, Mexico City), Galerie Lawt (2021, Paris), Bubenberg (2021, 2020, Paris), Ground Effect gallery (2021, Paris), Paul Iverno gallery (2021, Paris), with JCDC, Centre Pompidou (2021, Paris), Galleria Continua (2021, Paris), La Wonder (2021, Clichy), Ben Broom Drabl (2021, Paris), Archive Album (2021, Paris), Guido Romero Pierini allery (2021, 2020, Paris), Drabl (2020, Paris, digital exhibition), Galerie Sébastien Lepeuve (2020, Clicy), Casa-Pixan (2020, Mexico City), The Window gallery (2019, Paris),
The Lobby (2019, Tokyo), Michael Bargo gallery (2019, New-York), Plate gallery (2019, Paris), Galerie Sans Titre (2017, Paris), Kestin Hare Gallery (2017, Paris), Agnes B Galerie (2016, Paris).
She made a mural performance for La Vallette at the Palais de Tokyo in 2022 and for Robe - Tableau at the Centre Pompidou, performance robes tableaux with Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Charles de Vilmorin, Lou Ros, Damien Poulain.
Related Artworks
2020 La casa de Mercado Sonora - Mexico City
2019 El Consultario - Mexico City
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Residencies
Jan Melka (b. 1995) is a French-American painter who lives and works in Paris, France. She graduated from EPSAA - École professionnelle supérieure d'arts graphiques - Ville de Paris in 2017.
Jan Melka, 'Segunda Virginidad', 2021-2022 Oil and acrylic on linen canvas 130 x 195 cm diptych
Jan Melka, 'Segunda Virginidad 7,' 2021-2022, Oil and acrylic on linen canvas, 110 x 160 cm
Jan Melka, 'Segunda Virginidad 6', 2021-2022, Oil and acrylic on linen canvas, 180 cm x 130 cm
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