White Room: Douglas Melini

Douglas Melini presents a painting entitled Colossus, composed of thousands of hard-edged horizontal and vertical bands varying in width and color. Touching on various traditions of geometric abstraction, Melini’s work is reminiscent of artists such as Sol LeWitt, Joseph Albers and Frank Stella. Filling the entire room, Colossus is the result of three years of production for the artist. While Melini considers the piece to be a single painting, it is comprised of separate panels, designed to be arranged in different configurations to adapt to the space in which it is hung. The edges of the panels are painted so that they cast a halo of color into the spaces that divide them. In this manner, Colossus addresses not only customary formal concerns (color, light, surface, etc.), but responds directly to the architecture which it occupies. The installation at White Columns will present ten of the thirteen total panels in the painting. Melini holds a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from the University of Maryland. He has had solo exhibitions at The Rocket Gallery, London and Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica. This is his first solo show in New York.