FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: deborah@deborahmartingallery.com
Exhibition Dates
December 10- January 2, 2009
Artist Reception
Saturday December 12, 6-10pm
Silent Auction To Benefit PAWS/LA Assisting animal guardians in need.
Auction Bidding ends at exhibition closing
Los Angeles October, 2009-Deborah Martin Gallery is pleased to present “Vessels of the Avant Garde” New Paintings by Melanie Van Latum
Melanie Stimmell Van Latum’s portraits pop with a hardboiled baroque, neo-noir coterie of haunting, flamboyant heroines. Handsome, sinister, and
supremely confident women stare from the canvas with an imperiously mysterious gaze, clearly indicating that no cloister, boudoir, suburb or nursery
could ever contain the canny power of their bodies and minds.
Van Latum’s cleverly balanced compositions and high-tension-line lighting conjure a triumphant, intelligent feminine charisma – a mise-en-scene
flushed with dizzyingly endless décolletage and the intricate obsessions of coiffure. In playfully provoking erotic traditions, these post-traditionalist
paintings resuscitate the vapid, gaping pin-up model to her proper stance as empress, saint, and icon.
About Melanie Van Latum
Melanie earned her BFA in illustration from Art Center College of Design and her MA in Drawing & Painting from Cal State Fullerton. A Signature
Member of the Pastel Society of America, Melanie is the only female street painter to win the title of Maestro and several gold medals in both Italy and
Germany. Co-Founder of two prominent organizations in the chalk painting world, Street Painting Society and the Street Painting Academy, Melanie
has consulted, painted, and held painting workshops for clients in Turkey, Holland, France, Canada and throughout the U.S. Melanie’s fine art work
has been exhibited in galleries throughout Southern California.
Deborah Martin Gallery
209 W. 5th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Gallery Hours: Thursday- Saturday 1-6pm and by appointment.
Gallery Director: Deborah Martin
310 428-6464
deborah@deborhamartingalley.com
http://www.deborahmartingallery.com
