GO TO ARTIST'S GALLERY - MELIKYAN

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Sevan Melikyan After Degas Millinery Shop, 2009 Acrylic on canvas 47 7/16 x 52 1/4 inches
Jeff Mueller Somehow, 2009 Acrylic, vinyl, and resin on cradled masonite 12 x 12 1/2 inches
Shawn Walllis Untitled, 2006 Gesso, oil, pigment on paper 30 x 23 inches	Shawn Walllis Untitled, 2006 Gesso, oil, pigment on paper 30 x 23 inches

Acumen, an exhibition of new works by Sevan Melikyan, Jeff Mueller, and Shawn Wallis, will be on display June 20-August 15 at William Campbell Contemporary Art. An opening reception will be held June 20, 6:00-8:00 p.m. Acumen features art by three artists interested in reducing formal and contextual elements to their purest states. Whether abstract or representational, the works are process-driven, shrewd examinations of the subject matter. Melikyan seeks purity by reducing complex compositions to elemental color relationships, while Wallis focuses on one color and its relationship to the canvas. Mueller monumentalizes commonplace graffiti by placing it in a different context, focusing largely on the colors and lines inherent in the letters.

Sevan Melikyan pays homage to existing masterworks by examining their subject matter and distilling it down to its purest elements: color and line. For this exhibition, he has created new paintings inspired by the Impressionist works of Cezanne, Degas, and van Gogh, among others. The artist begins with an image of an existing painting and uses a photo-editing program to identify prominent colors and shapes within the composition. He transforms each object or area into a hard-edged color field, and then translates that onto the canvas. This method allows the artist to pull these visual building blocks out of even the most complex, expressionistic paintings, unveiling integral compositional elements. Melikyan's pieces are perfectly flat and void of texture. This application ensures that formally, the paintings retain their purity, and contextually, they remain universal and objective.

Shawn Wallis's work is largely about process as well, and employs aspects of both the action and color field sides of Abstract Expressionism. The monochromatic paintings are studies in pure color's interaction with light and texture, exemplified through complex layers that reveal the artist's handiwork at every stage of the process. Wallis works without brushes or pre-mixed paint, beginning with a color in its purest form and mixing it with medium directly on the prepared canvas. As the artist hand-rubs layers of pigment onto the support, he reveals subtle variations of color and characteristic marks on the sanded surface, all of which combine to create nebulous dimensions throughout the space.

The most overtly expressive of the three artists, Jeff Mueller examines words-specifically bathroom graffiti-and their impact both as thought-provoking phrases and as visual elements. Lifted from the wall and placed into a formalist context, the graffiti are deconstructed and the letters reduced into linear forms. Interested in the motivations behind graffiti authors and in the impact these thoughts could have on the "outside," the artist places the messages into his own visual sphere. In doing so, Mueller monumentalizes these usually overlooked sentiments, giving them gravity and prominence.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Sevan Melikyan
A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Sevan Melikyan spent his formative years in Paris and moved to New York City in the early '90s. He has been the director of marketing at the Van Cliburn Foundation in Fort Worth since 1997. Primarily a self-taught artist, Melikyan has been represented by William Campbell Contemporary Art since 2005.

Jeff Mueller
Jeff Mueller has exhibited throughout Texas and across the United States, including shows in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. He has won various honors and awards, among them Second Place at the Annual Voertman Student Competition, University of North Texas; the Juror's Merit Award at the 2003 Delta National Small Prints Exhibition; and the D. Jack & Gail Davis Scholarship at the University of North Texas. His work can be found in the collections of Bowling Green State University, the Purdue University Galleries, and the Amity Art Foundation. Jeff Mueller earned an MFA from the University of North Texas and a BFA from Bowling Green State University. He also studied at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy.

Shawn Wallis
Exhibiting professionally for nearly two decades, Shawn Wallis has participated in solo and group shows in Houston, San Antonio, Galveston, and Chicago, and internationally, in Vienna, Austria; Stuttgart and Frankfurt, Germany; and Lima, Peru. He was named 2006 Artist of the Year by the Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts, and his work has been reviewed in such publications as Artlies, ARTnews, the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and the New Art Examiner. Wallis's works are part of many private collections, including those owned by the Art Guys, Compaq, ExxonMobil, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Shawn Wallis received an MFA in painting and a BFA in photography from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

ABOUT THE GALLERY

Founded in 1974 by William and Pam Campbell, William Campbell Contemporary Art exhibits high-quality contemporary art in a variety of media, including paintings, works on paper, mixed-media constructions, photography, prints, ceramics, and sculpture. By exhibiting nationally recognized artists, along with new and emerging talent, the gallery aims to nurture an awareness and appreciation of the exciting diversity found in contemporary art.