In her optical and pulsating compositions, Melisa Taylor Metzger (Canadian, b. 1977) explores the notion of the sublime through blur and precision. The natural world acts as blue-print while further ideas are sourced from historical art and contemporary culture. Her studio practice is labor-intensive; various instruments and electric tools are used out-of-context to inject unpredictability in the painting gesture. She employs an eclectic multilayering process combining hand-made stencilling, airbrushing, pyrography and staining on wood. Mechanical-like execution and arbitrariness converge to create what she calls "systèmes faillibles" where the last step in creating each piece can literally “make or break” the painting. Ultimately, the success of each piece rests on a final intervention by the artist. As she embraces both meticulous control and chance, a subterranean tension emerges that jeopardizes the ethereal appearance of her imagery, populated by spectral motifs seeking to emerge out of obscuring lattices.

Melisa's work has been exhibited internationally and acquired in private and corporate collections across North America, Europe and Asia.