One Good Eye

In both her artistic practice and daily life, Melissa Dunn turns toward quiet as a way of seeing. Moving through the world and her studio seeking stillness and reflection, Dunn listens for what she calls “the seer”: a faceless, formless presence that is not a deity, but the purest part of her awareness. The paintings in One Good Eye emerge in the space between this quiet inner observer and the artist’s everyday self, where attention, discernment, and intuition become acts of resistance to a world that is consistently loud, fast-paced and exacting. Abstraction creates a conduit for introspection and grounding guided by color and form, presenting the viewer with an intentional yet generous ambiguity.

 

Melissa Dunn is a Memphis-based artist, musician and educator.  She came of age in the city’s music scene, splitting her time between playing in bands and making visual art. Music remains integral to her practice, although it’s now more of an inward-facing part of her studio life.  Her contemplative drawings and paintings are based in abstraction, bridging the world of her imagination with her lived experiences.  She’s received the Crosstown Artist Residency and a public art commission for Memphis International Airport. As a teaching artist dedicated to continuing-art education for adults, she has taught at Flicker Street Studios, studioELL and is a co-founder of ShapeShifter Art School. 

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