Out of Hours: Margaret Mellis and Melissa Gordon

This month we are delighted to be back in the galleries at Towner Eastbourne for one of our popular Out of Hours events. Focusing on the current Margaret Mellis and Melissa Gordon exhibitions, five Blue Monkey Network Members have been invited to select a piece of work from either show that holds a particular interest or resonance for them, discussing the works from their own unique perspective. This event will be a great opportunity for members and friends of the network to meet and see these two insightful exhibitions – we very much hope you can join us for our last event of 2021.

Participating artists:

Patricia Thornton is a figurative painter living and working in Lewes. Having taught Foundation at Northbrook College, now the MET (Worthing) for 12 years, Patricia has returned to her roots as a practicing painter. Recent group exhibitions include the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013 and the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019, as well as being long listed for the Jackson Painting Prize 2021. As well as being a member of BMN Patricia contributes to regular pop-up shows with Edgelands Modern, including the show ‘Back of an Envelope’ in 2019.

Judy Martin has been a Brighton resident for over 30 years. She has frequently participated in Artists Open Houses during Brighton Festival, taking the opportunity to present a series of solo exhibitions charting the progress of her work. She is currently working towards a large exhibition at Phoenix Art Space planned for July 2023.

After a career in advertising Roger Adams sold his ad agency and is now a painter, currently exploring the theme of Mother and Child. He has exhibited his work in both Sussex and London.

Stephanie Grainger is an artist with an interest in theatre and storytelling. Grainger uses drawing, animation, and visual metaphor to enlighten the darker or forgotten aspects of life, sometimes trying to highlight social injustices or simply to tell a story. She is currently working (very slowly) on a narrative animation, using only iPad drawing, in collaboration with Ray Burnside.

June Nelson is based in Lewes and works as part of the Front of House team at Towner. She makes art out of prosaic stuff, hoping for some poetry. She combines two- dimensional and three-dimensional works on paper and canvas, in assemblages, sculpture, and moving image. She frequently uses history and mythology to stand witness to hidden or silenced lives, particularly those of women.

About the exhibitions:

Margaret Mellis: Modernist Constructs draws from the artists’ extensive repertoire of work, spanning her career and illuminating the breath of her practice and underlying narratives. Bringing together her early experiments in collage under the guidance of Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo in the 1940s, to the vibrant abstracts of the 1950s and 1960s and the contemplative, yet playful driftwood constructions that dominated the final twenty years of her practice. Modernist Constructs introduces and reveals Mellis’ artistic accomplishments, whilst aligning her within the British Modernist movement.

Melissa Gordon is an artist, curator, and writer, whose practice is concerned with the body, gesture, and painting, through the lens of feminism. Her current exhibition Liquid Gestures, features large-scale paintings examining modern art history, ideas of authorship and the appropriation of certain ‘gestures’.

6.30-7.30. Free for Blue Monkey Network Members
Non-Members: £5.00 – payment must be made in advance please RSVP to bluemonkeynetsteph@gmail.com for details and to book your place.

Image: Installation view, Margaret Mellis: Modernist Constructs, at Towner Eastbourne, 16 October to 30 January 2022. Photograph by Rob Harris.

For more information visit https://townereastbourne.org.uk/whats-on/events/out-of-hours-margaret-mellis-and-melissa-gordon