NINA MELEDANDRI

 

Every artist has the desire to make something never before seen, to connect to truth in a unique way, to create the undeniable. Whether painting, working with mixed media or taking pictures, Jungian philosophy is at the core of my process. The principles of synchronicity and the collective unconscious have fostered my AbEx approach to painting, informed the experiential in my photographs and fueled trust in the exploration of materials.

My primary intent, regardless of media, is to provide the viewer access to an interior, recognizable place, be it a reminder of the familiar or the discovery of the previously unknown. To this end my language relies on that which is primal to all humans, forms which exist in the natural world we share. As a painter this often means symbols: eggs, pods, spirals, as a photographer I intimately explore flowers in all their stages and with mixed media I incorporate resonant organic matter into the paper itself. Weaving though all my work is my love of color and it’s ability to evoke deeply resonant and emotive responses in the viewer.

Nina Meledandri, a native New Yorker, is a painter and a photographer living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. After receiving her BA from Hampshire College (Amherst MA) in FIlm/Photo Studies, she returned to NYC as a freelance photographer and was published by the NY Times Magazine, Architectural Digest, New York Magazine and the Village Voice among others. At the beginning of the ’90’s she taught herself oil painting and began developing her language as an abstract painter. In 2003 she joined the David Findlay Gallery where she had 2 solo shows. She was represented by the gallery until they closed in 2008. It was during this period that she began photographing again. Meledandri continues to show (both in solo and group exhibitions) extensively throughout the New York area.
A cornerstone of Meledandri’s process both as a painter and a photographer is daily practice. As a painter this takes the form of daily watercolors that she has been making since 1996. As a photographer she has posted to a minimum of 3 blogs each day for the past 18 years. Recently Meledandri has focused on a number of projects that utilize both her paintings and her photographs as raw materials. Often this results in the creation of diptychs but recently it has led her back to an early studio practice of working with mixed media and collage. Currently she is exploring paper making as a means to enrich this process; her paper often involves the inclusion of organic materials. No matter her medium, her work is strongly rooted in her love of the natural world.