Mel Prest: COLOR UNFOLDING - July 15 - August 31, 2021

K. Imperial Fine Art is pleased to present COLOR UNFOLDING, a solo exhibition by new gallery artist Mel Prest.

With an eye for color and a steady hand, Mel Prest creates vivid illusory fields. At first seemingly hard-edged, closer inspection reveals arrays and meshes of hand-painted lines created by the finest of brush tips. The visuals soften and vibrate under the eye, engaging with the rhythm of hand and mark. Her work generates a spectral energy that buzzes, hums and rises from the paintings.

Prest’s work employs phenomena of landscape and light. Recent paintings are inspired by scents found in nature, wind, light effects like penumbras and sun dogs, and energies that are experienced with non-optical senses. The color comes through like a flavor, or a touch or scent that emerges slowly through semi-transparent layers. The linework follows as a mark; building in tempo, shaking like a maraca or flowing like the waves coming toward shore. Between the spaces the perceived combinations often create an optical mirage that hovers above the painting’s surface.

In addition to natural influences the paintings collected in COLOR UNFOLDING incorporate the construct of time- how it was once charted as discrete moments or memories, rather than 24-hour, 7-day increments. This selection of works explores stages of color from a period that included isolation, political and social unrest and transformation. Where time slowed and warped, sped up and became disconnected from the traditional pace. Each painting reflects a moment or passage disconnected in this timeless juncture.

The amalgamation of color and time is an inevitable expansion of Prest’s work, with a discrete narrative for each new piece. About the painting Night Bird, Mel writes: During the pandemic I spent a lot of free time riding my bike around a quieter city, noticing things more as space and time became disconnected. One of my favorite rides was Golden Gate Park at night, smelling the blooming flowers, cut grass, smoke, and things I couldn’t name. I could hear (and sometimes see) coyotes and owls calling out in the dark. These unplanned sense intersections were thrilling and inspiring to untangle in my studio. I began using more fluorescent, iridescent, metallic, phosphorescent colors- responsive colors that shift as you move around the work- to try to capture some of this magical unmoored feeling.

Mel Prest is an American abstract artist whose intricate, layered paintings mobilize color, line, and perspective to activate kinetic perceptual phenomena. She earned her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from Mills College, Oakland, CA. She lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Prest’s work has been exhibited internationally including: The Drawing Center, New York; The Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Durham, NC; IS Projects, Leiden, The Netherlands; and Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo.

Mel Prest, “Color Unfolding”

July 15 – September 11, 2021

Opening Reception:

Saturday, July 17, 12-3 pm