M-J de Mesterton attended Cornish School of Allied Arts in Seattle, and then moved to New York City. Living in
Manhattan, she first did freelance retouching for top art, commercial, and portrait photographers, and finally, after years
of struggle, restored artwork for the Pace/MacGill and Robert Miller galleries, and for the Museum of Modern Art. (She also
worked on Princeton University's portrait gallery, which is extensive.) And she painted fields of rocks through it all--rocks
in all sizes and shapes, some bright like jewels, others dark and atmospheric, rocks with bold, dynamic outlines, and facets
rich with shadows and filtered light, rocks that don't always look like rocks but are instead magnetic abstractions of color
and form. M-J de Mesterton paints rocks.
M-J's
mission statement is divorced from complex terminology: "I use oil exclusively, and oil paint comes from rocks."
Her compositions are vibrant, and they are moody and nuanced. She harbors a deep fascination with organic structure. "Every
color we know comes from the ground below." Her fields of rocks are cold blue arroyos that run toward fading skies, and
they are glowing sunlit shapes that combine power and sensuous abandon. Mélodie-Jeanne creates a voluptuous harmony
that is uniquely pleasing.
As a kid in Seattle, M-J loved to travel into
the dry lands, through the desert of Eastern Washington, toward the great Montana plains. She called it "Cowboy Country,"
and dreamt even then of living in Santa Fe, where the earth meets the light in a stark embrace. She painted the great American
high desert, and the sky above it. And then she became obsessed with the intricate shapes and colors that rest upon the ground.
"I like abstraction," she says, "and I am fascinated by materials that can be turned into energy. There is
so much wonder in the natural world, and it feels like alchemy to turn hard creations into mood regulators. After all,
art is designed to shock, amuse, confuse, and bring happiness to untold millions, right?" The question comes with a smile.
"I want to paint beautiful objects, but my idea of beauty is just a little unusual...." But her paintings are beautiful,
and they are neither modern nor old-fashioned: they exist in timeless constructs that combine bold expression with respect
for genesis. "I love the earth; I love fullness and elegant structure; I love strength and integrity of form--and I'm
not afraid of scale. There is an irresistible fusion that drives life and culture forward into the next frame. My paintings
are snapshots of a moment, they exist to focus the eye on elemental objects, and how those objects can work together to make
a field that plays on human perception. I want to move you."
Copyright 2007
