“Melissa Shaak commands the screen as she does a canvas through movement, color and transformation. In bringing fictional characters to life, she liberates the viewers imagination and reminds them to take hold of creative impulses that come, seemingly out of nowhere. ”
Melissa Shaak
“The invitation inherent in the work is to catch and take hold of
the creative impulses that come, seemingly out of nowhere.”
OUT OF NOWHERE
Seven cutout figures reveal themselves in the slow weaving of their paths through light and shadow. The figures serve as trustworthy personas made manifest to help us navigate and mediate the world today. Each raises a torch, or scepter, holding the light, signaling and leading the way.
This five-minute video is part of an installation in which the figures are twice transformed. They step daringly out of their portrait paintings into space and time—first in sculptural form and then in video and performance art. This process of seeking and finding form is one filled with creative sparks and enigmatic turns. The invitation inherent in the work is to catch and take hold of the creative impulses that come, seemingly out of nowhere. The full installation will be on view in the exhibition “Out of Nowhere,” with artist Marcia R Wise, scheduled for May 2021 at Fountain Street Gallery.
It was this ensemble of oddly archetypal figures that compelled me to try my hand at video. It evolved into a creative collaboration of the highest order. Greta Bro is as wise and soulful as her music. The Puppet Showplace Theater’s Roxie Myhrum and Sarah Nolen embraced the cutouts on sight, and it is Sarah’s creative and technical genius that you see at work. Alex Ezorsky patiently taught me the basics of video editing, and Fountain Street video artists Allison Maria Rodriguez and Joseph Fontinha provided encouragement along the way. I am grateful to each one, as well as to my Creativity Lab colleagues, gifted teachers, and numerous dear friends for their wealth of inspiration and support.
Haiku: The Ensemble
“I love the form of haiku—all distillation, juxtaposition, essence—perfect for capturing the enigmatic qualities of these seven personas. I usually labor (with love) over writing, but these flowed effortlessly.”
Flor, you play on words
And tiles. Arms crossed and freedom
Bound tangentially
Djuna half-moona
Crescent and chrysanthemum
Motherlode of all
Françoise steals the blues
Hewing close to scepter height
Torchlight to their truths
Jade bade me go yon
Fonder still of the Eastern
Sky and smoke and shroud
Journey, top-grafted
See your scions in full bloom
With tiger tails too
Estella bella
Tella all, why do you scream?
Or are you a-song?
D. Ray mirroring
A war correspondent’s gaze
Brazen camouflage
ABOUT MELISSA SHAAK
Melissa Shaak's abstract acrylic paintings balance color shifts with amorphous forms that appear ponderous, whimsical or surreal. She explores how the act of concealing, by means of overpainting with large swaths of flat color, reveals and brings focus to the sprawl of life in the layers underneath. In Shaak’s most recent work, she experiments with both imagery and medium; archetypal figures find themselves in paintings, sculptural cutouts of their forms, and as an ensemble captured on video.
Shaak's paintings and monotypes have been exhibited at Fountain Street Annex, Cambridge Health Associates and NAVE Gallery. She is a longstanding member of the Creativity Lab at New Art Center and a recent resident at Vermont Studio Center. In addition to courses taken at Tufts School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Mass College of Art, she studied with Adria Arch and Robert Siegelman. Shaak lives and works in Somerville, MA.