Nina Meledandri, #984-0698, inknet print, 15" x 35"

American, b. 1957, playing from Brooklyn, NY, USA

I make a lot of images, some of them are paintings, some of them are photographs and some, in a strange way, are both.

Inside every artist is a desire to make something that has never been seen before, the need to connect to truth in a unique way, the drive to create something undeniable. I have probably spent equal time with a camera as a paintbrush in hand and over the years I have searched consistently for a process that would organically morph the two. I have drawn on photographs and run paintings through my printer, I have glued, I have stitched and have used various photo transfer processes. I have made paintings that feel more like photographs and taken pictures that appear to be paintings. With Somewhere In Between the photo and the paint have finally and seamlessly merged.

The Somewhere In Between images are ink jet prints composed of a photograph and a painting. The paintings are from the series Random Thoughts (begun in 1995) and are 8x8" oils on wood panel which have been digitally photographed. The photographs are from my digital archives. As a collagist and an archivist. It is an amazing journey for me to go through my photographic images from the perspective of them being raw material and watch as they transform when they find their compliment in a painting.

The title Somewhere In Between refers to both medium and message. While technically a digital image, these prints are truly "somewhere in between" a painting and a photograph and the power of their impact rests in the haunting, tiny, almost subliminal space "somewhere in between" its two components that have become one.

Email: nina@meledandri.com Websites: http://www.meledandri.com bit.ly/gallery-meledandri Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/virtualdailybread

Thoughts on the Telephone process

Responding to art with art is one of my passions, among other collaborations, it was the basis of a piece I did for the Brooklyn Museum’s First Fans Twitter Feed: http://bit.ly/ArtDialogue-welcome . Telephone was a challenge however; the work I was given was a poem and I am more familiar with responding to images. I think because “words” were involved, I kept finding myself being quite literal in forming my interpretation. It wasn’t until I was right against the deadline that I was able to loosen up and respond from the gut.