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David Mellen
Oil on Linen: 'Blue Heart ll'

2024

$25,000
£18,892.41
€22,117.20
CA$34,911.87
A$39,279.05
CHF 20,811.57
MX$485,046.72
NOK 255,127.83
SEK 245,142.67
DKK 164,981.05
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About the Item

David Mellen’s paintings orchestrate a complexity derived both from an intricate style and equally complex notion of painting’s ability to cross boundaries and conception in a time of considerable eclecticism, it makes sense he would end up creating a full vision out of different, not necessarily easily joined, particulars. But likely the contrasts support each other; his abstraction underpins his figuration, while his realism underpins his taste for non-objective art. David Mellen (b. 1970, Chicago, IL, USA) attended the American Academy of Art and exhibited his work in his hometown of Chicago until 1994, when he moved to Europe. Over the next five years, he exhibited work in Paris, Brussels and London while working at studios in Germany and Brussels. After returning to the states and living for a time on the west coast, he moved across the country and now lives with his family in Connecticut and exhibits in New York. “When I start a new painting, it’s as if I’ve forgotten how to paint. I mean, once a painting is finished, that final image is so separate from the painting’s beginning, which is buried in this history of false starts and mistakes that I’ve forgotten how I went about it. For me, a finished painting is an accumulation of many small decisions which eventually add up to form a final image, but when starting something new, there is no history…there is nothing but a feeling and an idea. There’s a line in Becket’s Endgame ‘There’s something dripping in my head… A heart, a heart in my head.’ That’s how painting feels to me, slowly accumulating drop by drop.”
  • Creator:
    David Mellen (1970, American)
  • Creation Year:
    2024
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 78 in (198.12 cm)Width: 60 in (152.4 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU422315511682

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