Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Into the Vortex, Dana Melamed’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. In this new series of works on paper, Melamed employs a more aggressive and determined process to construct dark and tumultuous emotional landscapes that tear through the surface.

With multiple layers, Melamed assembles a fictitious urban environment that does not refer to a specific place, nor express a particular narrative—yet carries the weight and intensity of a mute history. Her process begins with sketching a landscape and overlaying it with transparencies of photographs of built structures. She then applies acrylic, various adhesives, and printing waste to the surface and takes a blow torch and a razor to it. As the different materials dissolve into each other—concept and technique coalesce, thus forming the overwhelming impressions of destruction and decay.

The urban experience serves as a trigger and a framework for the emotional turmoil that Melamed sets forth with her fierce and impulsive practice. With obsessive marks and layering, she gives form to the sensations that arise within the stifling and depleted metropolis surroundings.

Her works are typically devoid of actual human presence, yet it is perpetually implied through the inherent devastation. Contrary to her earlier works, Melamed no longer positions the viewers within the eye of the destruction, but provides them instead with a panoramic vantage point from which they can witness the emotional and sensual spectacle that manifests itself in every element of the composition—the debris in the foreground, the distant tunnels, or even the seemingly peaceful clouds in the sky. In so doing, the viewers are not lost amongst the rubble, but rather are placed at a safe distance from which they can observe the demise of one great city after another.