Joan Mellon

I prefer referring to myself as a painter rather than an artist because painting is what I do whether I am working with pigments bound by oil (oil paint) or those bound by a gum binder (pastels); whether I am working on paper, a stretched canvas, or canvas bonded to wood.

The work I make is not about anything other than what you see in front of you—objects of color. For me, making paintings of simple shapes and subtle/intense color is a way to slow down the fast-paced environment in which we live. It has always been my hope that the work I create serve as a quiet place where one human being can connect with another; an antidote to an increasingly speedy, politicized, and disposable world.

I hold a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and a MA, Liberal Studies, from SUNY Empire State College. I have been an adjunct art teacher at the State University of New York and an Artist-In-Residence at Roosevelt Hospital and St. Vincents Comprehensive Cancer Center in New York City.

I am available to conduct workshops in the use of various painting and drawing materials and in finding the language to describe what one sees while looking at and responding to contemporary art.