Studio Arts is pleased to announce the exhibition, Mutations by Studio Arts professor, Melissa Catanese opens Wednesday, January 29, 2025 in the Paul Mesaros Gallery at the Canady Creative Arts Center at West Virginia University. Professor Catanese will be giving an artist talk at 5pm in Bloch, followed by a reception in the gallery.
Melissa Catanese creates artist’s books and image constellations that merge her own photographs with found and anonymous imagery, transforming individual images into fluid, sensorial experiences within a collective context. Her work challenges ideas of authorship, representation, and the lifecycle of images.
In Mutations, Catanese combines darkroom experiments, newly made images from coastal and geological exploration, and archival imagery to delve into themes of marine ecosystems, human activity, and artistic evolution. Central to the exhibition are photograms crafted from remnants of the historic carbon printing process, abstract "fossils" from pigmented gelatin that suggest transformation and evoke introspection.
Her photographs of bull kelp formations along the Pacific coast function as both observational studies and visceral metaphors, highlighting kelp’s fragile role within marine ecosystems while eliciting a bodily, almost intestinal response. Displayed alongside images of marine life and geological evidence, and collected archival materials, her work reflects on the interplay between human documentation, marine habitats and geology, and the psychological tension between abstraction and observation.
Mutations blurs artistic boundaries, embracing the recycling of motifs and the spirit of experimentation. Through seemingly dissonant yet interconnected elements, Catanese offers a meditation on ecological fragility, deep time, and the evolving nature of creative practice.
Mutations, Melissa Catanese
Paul Mesaros Gallery, Canady Creative Arts Center
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Exhibition: January 29-February 28, 2025
Lecture + Reception: Wednesday, January 29, 5PM, Bloch Hall
