Storm Ascher: Where are you currently? Did you have to relocate your studio during the shutdown?
Melanie Luna: At the beginning of the shutdown I stayed with my family in the Bronx for over a month. I took with me limited supplies so I can continue working while sheltering in place. For surfaces I painted over old pieces and started fresh. Now, currently in my studio in Brooklyn I am continuing to work on new paintings and old ones.
Storm Ascher: What is it like to be an art student at Pratt?
Melanie Luna: Art schools breed a kind of artist that is susceptible to the current waves. While being a student at Pratt I constantly asked myself if my career choice was right. First in my family to pursue a college degree and to top it off an art degree I definitely had my ups and downs. Pratt Institute nourished me and allowed me to take my potential to new heights.
Storm Ascher: You are working on a large commission, can you speak more about the project and what the subject of the painting is?
Melanie Luna: I’m working with the Drake Hotel in Toronto, Canada on a large painting that will be placed in the lobby. A project that was supposed to be due around this time, has been pushed for a later date by Covid-19. An inconvenience to some, I mostly saw it as an opportunity to give this piece more time and attention. This is the biggest commission I’ve ever received and at the moment I’m on the drafting stage of the painting since I’m unable to work in my Brooklyn studio. The subject is open ended, I’m in constant flux so my ideas can change any day. I definitely have a criteria for this specific piece. Larger than life figures painted out of meat, usually in the middle of an activity.
Storm Ascher: Why do you choose mylar as a material?
Melanie Luna: One night, junior year of college I placed a sheet of reflective mylar on my dorm room ceiling reflecting my bed. Every night I looked up and saw my naked body distorted with my bedsheets and on occasion the bodies of others. It took a full year to actually begin working on mylar. I was mesmerized by the effect it had on my eyes. I never wanted to break the evenness of the mirror. I was stuck in the traditional canvas and never imagined mylar being sturdy enough to become a surface. One day I had enough of the reflections constantly moving and never staying fixed I decided to paint what I saw. EUREKA! I thought I was hot shit that day. I still very much love the movement and the effect it has once paint is placed on top but I am once again growing and painting on different surfaces. It never lasts long, does it?
Storm Ascher: Imagine a fresh canvas was delivered to your door right now, what would you paint and what is your game plan?
Melanie Luna: My fingers, wrist, elbow and shoulder are much more loose when it comes to painting on canvas. I mean, I can always gesso if I messed up. I would create a scene of an anchor news woman staring right at you, on the top right of the composition there would be a very badly drawn police sketch of the suspect at large. A stage microphone dangles right above the anchor woman, just to remind you this is all staged. After, I would wrap a mylar sheet on top and create a new painting while the anchorwoman painting stays fixed under it.
Storm Ascher: What prompted you to use marbling in your paintings?
Driving Stick, 2020 | acrylic and sand | 36 x 48 inches
Melanie Luna: There’s a pause when painting with a brush I can't seem to enjoy. Running out of pigment while painting and stopping the progress altogether to pick up some more. These kind of minor inconveniences tick me. I like instantaneous movements you can’t correct, like spray paint and dripping paint. I mostly work flat on the floor with ketchup bottles and syringes. I move the corners of the surface accordingly to where I want the marbled effect to stop. The meat look is simply just white paint with a red pigment. It sometimes feels like I’m performing surgery on my subjects, constantly correcting them and at times botching them.
Storm Ascher: What is the concept behind your figures not having skin?
Melanie Luna: Anatomy. I can’t seem to agree with choosing a palette of skin for my figures so I decided to focus on the layer after flesh. The marbled meat was an an accidental discovery, I chose to stick with it because of the actual happenings while you drip paint, you can’t predict where gravity and time will make the paint to flow. It was a distraction from focusing on skin tones, something I've always tried to avoid.
Storm Ascher: Your solo show with us was supposed to be this month in NY, how are you pivoting for the future?
Curing Fat, 2020 | oil and acrylic | 18 x 24 inches
Melanie Luna: Just like the commissioned painting with the Drake Hotel, I see this timed setback as a great opportunity to keep refining and redefining my body of work. I’m curing my meats and by 2021 they will be ready for tasting.
Storm Ascher: What’s the most recent piece of criticism you received that changed your practice?
Melanie Luna: “I don't feel anything towards your work”. This statement by an established artist really touched me to the core. I admit I’m out of touch emotionally with my work and the works of others. I can’t seem to stop what I’m doing and feel. I’m in a rat race with time and I’ve always felt left out of the feeling department. I ask myself what someone else sees when looking at art; life changing experiences, memories, the future, themselves… or do they all feel nothing? What makes them acquire art? Is it emotional or purely for profit? From that day forward I have tried to keep a journal of my thoughts. Words cannot describe what I am feeling at this moment as we speak. One thing is certain, I know every single living artist thinks of this.
Storm Ascher: What does “Nomad” mean to you?
Melanie Luna: Wandering with no destination, time and place does not exist to a nomad its all about getting from point A to B and so on.
Storm Ascher: What books are you reading right now?
Melanie Luna: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke & One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.