other studio visits

this article appears courtesy of the New York Sun
where it was originally published
   

BIG IN JAPAN
David Cohen talks with MELISSA MEYER in her TriBeCa Studio. Artist photograph by Bruce Strong. Other images courtesy Shiodome City Center, Tokyo

Melissa Meyer is big in Japan. Not in the euphemistic sense applied to rock stars, but literally. She has just completed her largest paintings to date there.

Tokyo's newest skyscraper, the Shiodome City Center, designed by Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, and Associates, is also, at 43 floors, the tallest. Ms. Meyer has created a pair of murals for the atrium, one at 10' high and 60' long, the other at 40' x 40'. The atrium also includes works by fellow New Yorker Matthew Ritchie, and an artist from Beijing, Zhan Wang.

Like all her works, the murals are a riot of color, spontaneity, exuberant gesture, and masterful poise. In terms of color, gesture and mood, Ms. Meyer is one of the most upbeat painters working in New York today. Whatever the state of the economy, business folk entering the complex are sure to feel a lifting of spirits on passing these works. It is interesting that these murals, decorating a major new skyscraper, started life a week before September 11.

Ms. Meyer tells the story in her Tribeca loft, looking out a window that used to frame a view of the Twin Towers. When the attacks occurred, she was "sitting right here, where we are now, and watching from this window."

north elevation of Shiodome City Center at dusk

"The week before September 11 (now we do everything "before" and "after") Sarina Tang [an art consultant] asked me for some slides because she had a project. Then September 11 happened, and Sarina called again and said, 'Now you have to do a proposal.' I felt very lucky because it was very comforting to be able to focus on something. I had a lot of trouble focusing on my painting."

Ms. Meyer threw herself into the technicalities of making a proposal. She called friends for advice, and fellow painter Joyce Kozloff said, "You're asking all the right questions". She was told to go along to Cooper Union and ask the architects there to make her a model.

"But I thought, I don't want to make a model, because I don't like the little paintings you have to make for models, and then it turned out there was a program all the architects have on their computers. In the end, it turned out, I couldn't have done this project without a computer, a cell phone, and a digital camera, which is funny considering I'm a traditional abstract oil painter."

This observations describes Melissa Meyer perfectly. She is her own woman, but open to change. A tough nut, but flexible. She was born in Queens in 1947 and has the accent and attitude to prove it.

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