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Artist statement

I consider my art practice to belong to the existentialist plane since I focus on my own experiences and I channel my emotions through my art, using it as a means to interpret myself. My art addresses the uneasy coexistence of the mind and the body. I do not wish my art to be only aesthetically pleasant per se but to engage the minds of my audience in different ways.  

I do not identify as any established type of artist; my practice does not always necessarily fit into an artistic discipline, strictly speaking I could not be defined as a painter, a photographer, nor a sculptor (etc.) alone. I always take a more holistic and natural approach by letting my ideas flow and be expressed in any way they need to be, without forcing them to be narrowed into a particular physical format; in other words, I do not want to limit myself in practicing only one kind of media. For instance, sometime I collect materials in stores and parks, picking up random objects that catch my attention. For me, every object has a story to tell and I want those objects to become part of mine or help me channel what I need to express. It is like if I let my feelings ‘guide’ me, in a sense, to convey them through the right kind of material to produce my art. The array of materials that I have previously used range from common objects and utilities - like toilet paper, wool and a bidet – to rarer or more carefully selected (or topic-targeting) materials – like Ghanaian traditional fabrics and fake blood – in different ways. Also, my range of techniques I applied as delivery methods span from photography, videos, installations, performances and sculpture. 

Regarding the subjects and topics of my art practice, most of it comes from my own painful experiences, situations that other people might also (and most probably) have experienced in their lives. Racial discrimination and gender inequality are two of the most recent topics that I have addressed, and these will never leave me since they root in my own being. The main concern around which the topics of my practice usually revolve is figuring out how can I do art without the audience focusing on the fact that I am a black woman.  

Since the last time I wrote a statement like this one, I learned that I should not need to explain who I am in terms of my background and origin to do my art. People should not care about it either; alternatively, I wish that my audience focused on my craft and the meaning of my practice. I wish that the message that emanates from my art practice would reach people’s mind without going through the filters of the prejudices that society has placed upon myself. I believe that art should be liberated from the social constructs of gender, background, race and class, so it's pure purpose and message can be understood and interpreted by anyone; however contradictorily, a path to achieve this is for art to tackle these same constructs. This whole idea of the liberation of art is precisely what I would wish for future generations to learn, helping them to express and understand themselves through art, in the same way as I did (and I am still doing) for myself. 

Artist CV 

 

Personal information: 

Melody Addo 

Born in Vicenza, Italy. 

Works in Bath, Somerset. 

 

 
Education: 

 2017 – 2020 

BA (Hons) Fine Art at Bath School of Art and Design

 

2016 – 2017 

UAL L3 Art and Design at West Thames College 

2014- 2017 

3 years of Liceo Artistico Martini (Italy) 

 

 

Exhibitions: 

2020

Hauser & Wirth: In real life

 2018 

Sugar Rush – Bath.

 

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