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USA
Appalachia
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Virginia Beach, VA
Melissa Polhamus
1957-
Painting (oil or water-based)
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Information:
Melissa Polhamus was born in Ludwigsburg, Germany. She is the adopted daughter of a U.S. military career serviceman and his wife. Melissa grew up in several different American towns as a result of her father’s transfers to various East Coast military bases during her childhood. In 1989, she began to draw from her own imagination while recuperating from depression suffered in the wake of an automobile accident. Shortly thereafter she began to immerse herself in her art. By then she had accumulated a broad range of experience in her personal and professional life. She has since been sporadically employed. Nonetheless, Polhamus is self-taught as an artist.
Her incongruously bright-colored linear drawings are characterized by marked obsessiveness and intense psychological distress. She has described the process of creating these works as entirely spontaneous and intuitive. The compositions are usually overloaded and intricately fragmented. Her drawings have a dreamlike and often nightmarish narrative quality in which, convoluted environments are typically inhabited by cartoonish clothed figures as they carry out activities that are alternately mundane, mysterious, or sinister. Through a labyrinth of interconnected chambers, corridors, stairways and networks, entities subtly transform from one action to the next. The bizarre activities that she depicts, as well as the myriad symbolically resonant details in her drawings, invite psychological analyses that present their own particular challenges. Her drawings often include peculiar vehicles, weaponry, musical instruments, stylized vegetation and jaggedly geometric patterns that contribute to a pervasive sense of anxiety. They are mysteriously compelling and consistently original in style.
Tom Patterson
Winston-Salem Journal
Creative Heart Gallery
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Bibliography:
"Detour Art—Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Folk Art Environments Coast to Coast, Art and Photographs from the Collection of Kelly Ludwig" by Kelly Ludwig, Kansas City Star Books, 2007.
On DVD - Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, "Eastern Weaseling", KCPT, Kansas City Public Television, 2002.
"20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993.
"Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art—A guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources" by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson, McFarland & Company, 2000.
"Contemporary American Folk Art - A Collector's Guide" Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, 1996.
"Flying Free: Twentieth-Century Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon" by Ellin Gordon, Barbara L. Luck and Tom Patterson, exhibit catalog for The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, 1997.
"American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies" by Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal, 2003.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations Coast to Coast Travel-o-Pedia" by Randy Mason, et. al., Kansas City Star Books, 2009. |
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Credit: © Kelly Ludwig, Detour Art, all rights reserved. |
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Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Kelly Ludwig, featured in the book Detour Art, 2007.
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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From the collection of Kelly Ludwig, featured in the book Detour Art, 2007.
Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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All contents © 2004 - 2007 Detour Art Co.
All images are property of the artists who created them.
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