Melissa Middleberg
Melissa Middleberg is a figurative oil painter based in New York. Painting on panels and canvas, her evocative work travels through time, in and out of memory, from quiet introspective moments to intimate exchanges. She finds inspiration in family and found photographs and is particularly interested in Italian-American and Jewish culture in Brooklyn and Manhattan from the 1950s-1970s. She’s exhibited at Voices Studio, Dubuque, IA, Culture Lab, Long Island City, NY, and 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
Collect Bean: What does growth mean to you?
Melissa Middleberg: Growth, to me, means expanding beyond your current circumstances and perspective. I think the way we grow as artists and as people in general is through exposure to new things and people, ways of thinking and being. Growth requires nurturing: if you want something to grow, you have to give it what it needs.
But you don’t always know what’s needed to grow, which is why exploration is so important. I try to explore and expose myself to things that might not seem interesting to me immediately, and even if I don’t find inspiration there, I’ll likely learn some things about myself. One of the biggest obstacles for growth is ego, which is why a lot of adults stop growing and changing–you really have to be willing to risk embarrassing yourself, at least a little. Growth is uncomfortable; I think if you’re not a little uncomfortable, you’re probably not growing.
Collect Bean: How do you decide on the subject matter for a painting?
Melissa Middleberg: I often work from family and found photos, especially from before the 1980s. A lot of people call my work “nostalgic,” which, of course, it certainly might be for someone who was born in the ’40s/’50s/’60s. I was born in 1989, and I think there is an experience very specific to my generation in which we grew up with more traditional values and expectations about what the world would be like, and then things changed a lot, and now we’re living as adults in a world that doesn’t match those expectations. I’m somehow “nostalgic” for a time that was never mine but felt promised to me. I think a better word might be “longing” – whether it’s longing for the past or for something you never had but always wanted. I seek references that capture moments that strike this nerve for me: it’s often an indescribable feeling, especially when looking at a photo that seemingly has nothing to do with me personally; a pang of homesickness, a brief tiny heartbreak. So much of life is longing for something, waiting for something; it’s a universal feeling, and it’s at the heart of so much of the art I love and the kind of art I want to make.
Collect Bean: How does where you grew up influence your work?
Melissa Middleberg: My work is very closely tied to where I grew up. I was born in Brooklyn but grew up in a transplant town in New Jersey where seemingly everyone’s parents were born in Brooklyn or another borough of New York City. It’s a unique situation to be living in one place and having all the adults around you connect over another place–every adult conversation I’d overhear at the grocery store or school was about the “old neighborhood”. As a child, I never understood why they left a place they were so happy in. I’d go with my dad to his office in the garment district in Manhattan and fell in love with the energy and movement of the city. I loved to look at photos of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents in the streets with their coats and cigarettes and smiles. It kind of hovered over my life, part of the past and the present, and the future; it still does. I continue to seek this romantic, unattainable idea of city life. It lives only in memory, it maybe never actually existed at all, but I’m still trying to capture this elusive feeling in my work.
Collect Bean: What role does color play in your practice?
Melissa Middleberg: I think color is the most evocative, if subtle, aspect of my paintings. There’s a certain rusty orange that was very prevalent in interior decorating in the 70s that shows up frequently in my work that I think really transports the viewer to a very specific place and time. I feel like this palette adds to the sensory experience I’m trying to create with my work: I want my paintings to look like they smell like coffee and strong perfume and feel like carpeting and wood paneling. Something about that rust color calls to mind all of this for me.
Collect Bean: What is the kindest thing someone can tell you about your work?
Melissa Middleberg: The best compliment for me is when someone comments on my style or consistency within my work. I think that’s been a real insecurity of mine, so when someone says a painting “feels” like mine, it means the work I’m putting in to develop my style is coming through. While it’s not the most important thing, it’s a barometer of my efforts – you can’t create a style overnight, it develops through your work over time.
