Blow Salon ‘Spring Art Show’ features Melissa K. Smith

Multi-disciplinarian artist, photographer and creator of the “Blood Roses” gothic vampire comic series Melissa K. Smith has a new show featuring her ethereal landscapes and figurative wolf-inspired acrylic paintings at the beautiful Blow Salon in Berkeley.  The opening reception for the group “Spring Art Show” is Saturday, April 19^th at 8pm and will feature local artists including Kate Ingram, James Foley, Emily Cadagan and Becca Jones Starr. As an active member of the diverse arts communities of the East Bay, Melissa engages a variety of subjects using different media, mediums and techniques.  Painter, inker, actress, producer – artist and dreamer, she’s an avid traveler in “the everywhere” as she incorporates the new and the ancient, traditional myths, legends and alternative perspectives into her work.  She is also an avid animal rights advocate and volunteers for Never Cry Wolf Rescue & Adoptions in Roseville, California as a wolf handler and educator.  Fond of midnight excursions over daylight company, happenstance to planned routines, you’ll find her creating art and making places for conversations and query as a point of departure and discovery. Melissa’s work reveals a tireless exploration of the nether-spaces in color and form where she prepares layered, complex compositions that are at once inviting, sometimes challenging, ultimately beckoning the viewer to illusory places between the thoughts of the artist and the destinations of the viewer.  These structured juxtapositions of concrete space and imagined space tell us that the subjects of her worlds are like us in their intimate pursuits of harmonic significance in the boundaries and escape ship plans of our lives.  This examination of the conflict inherent in indeterminable spaces is the foundation upon which Melissa completed two consecutive undergraduate degrees before advanced graduate work at JFK University in Berkeley where she studied transformative arts and consciousness.  After additional studio work, then teaching technique and form in the Bay Area, she spent the summer traveling to Italy where she taught Italian students in Lucca during the day and venturing to Rome and Florence at night.  These travels culminated in a Master’s Degree with special interest in acrylic painting and conceptualized “found object” formulations. Melissa draws on a lifetime of artful pursuits, formal education and experimentation with painting, pen & ink, charcoal, Conte, photography, illustrations, comic books, printing and film & video (see Melissa’s films and projects on IMDB).  With a long list of private and public shows, gallery showings, intimate cafes, lounges, funky studios – her work can be found throughout the West Coast, Canada, Italy and New York.  As an active member of Never Cry Wolf Rescue & Adoptions she conducts outreach and education through out Northern California and uses her experiences as the basis for an ongoing wolf-inspired series of paintings.  In addition, she shoots video and photographs for their online website along with promotions and publicity.  Her painting “Dreaming Of The Wild” was selected by the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, a non-profit organization based in Flagstaff, Arizona to be in their gallery show to promote positive wolf awareness.  Her acrylic painting “No Woman’s Land” was chosen by jury selection for the Arts & Consciousness Alumni Exhibition at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, California for the exhibition “Art as Liminal Space: Threshold of Transformation”.   Her painting “Honey Hunter” was included in San Francisco’s Central City Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program exhibit “Honeycomb 2012″. Additional articles about Melissa K. Smith: Melissa K. Smith’s New Gallery Show: Threshold of Transformation Melissa K. Smith – Artist, Dreamer, Adventurist   Melissa K. Smith: Honey Hunter: Photo-mâché: Imagist & Multidisciplinarian

 Blow Salon – http://www.blowsalon.com

Blow Salon provides professional, creative hair styling, cutting and coloring services which express the individuality and style of each of our clients. Our intimate salon atmosphere and attentive staff combine to create a comfortable setting for your hair styling experience. On our walls you will see art by local artists which rotates several times a year, providing the salon with creative flair and inspiration.   “We are a Barber Shop for Girls* * and Grrlz, Bois, Boys, Ladies, Queers, Guys, Men, Freaks, Kinksters and Weirdos! And we do every head of hair to look sexy on a pillow.” Blow Salon is a full service salon and artist hang located in the heart of Berkeley

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Meet the artists: Emily Cadigan, James Foley, Kate Ingram Becca Jones-Starr, and Melissa K Smith! Plus great nibbles by the great Habib Cutolo, Brew by Triple Rock and wine donation by the owner of Kingfish, Sara and Emil (you guys are awesome). So bring your cute self, maybe a friends or three… eat, drink and enjoy some new art for your Spring.