Melinda Tidwell
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Melinda Tidwell STATEMENT My work begins with the formal aspects of design and the balance of visual elements in composition. Using parts from a variety of books, I focus on the juxtaposition and coherence of colour, pattern, placement and size. My background in mathematics, computer graphics, and design has lead to a certain comfort with geometric arrangements. But this rational foundation quickly gives way to what is not rational: the way colours activate each other, how size and position muddle or enhance visual unity, the simple grace of worn and tattered surfaces. I find discarded books a particularly rich collage material, both for their physical properties and the context they come from. I love the foxed pages, how covers fade and fray, and the paperbacks grow scored with folds. But then there are the components of language: typography, words, sentences, diagrams, pictures that bring meaning with them. Cut away from their original context, they operate as texture and shape, and also as a kind of code, or pieces of memory. The abstraction of this information into bits of non-sense, hopes to tease the viewer into that wilder land of free association and one’s own imagination. This peculiar sensation of a world slightly askew, is something I really enjoy. BIO Melinda Tidwell is a collage artist with an interest in discarded books. Her love of books and vintage materials lured her from the world of computer graphics/design and into her current work in book collage. Tidwell’s collages are shown yearly in gallery exhibitions, international art fairs, and are included in numerous private and corporate collections in the United States. Her work is currently represented by galleries in San Francisco, Seattle, Sun Valley, and Santa Fe. Melinda also teaches from her studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at other venues around the country. ARTIST CONTACT [click to email] IMAGES
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