The Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University, is pleased to present Foreign Intimacies, a retrospective exhibition of works by Mel Rosas, March 31 through June 2, 2023. The opening reception will be held on Friday, March 31 from 6-9PM, and includes a live performance by Recanstruction at 7PM.
Artist Biography
Mel Rosas was born in Des Moines, IA and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Drake University in Des Moines. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Mel is an emeritus professor with the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan where he served from1976 - 2021. On June 2, 1994, he received a Board of Governor’s Faculty Recognition Award for outstanding professional achievement. From 2013 - 2021, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to WSU in the areas of creative activity, teaching, and service, Mel was appointed as the Elaine L. Jacob Endowed Chair in Visual Arts, 2014 through 2021.
Mel has exhibited his drawings and paintings extensively in local and national venues and one can view his work in numerous corporate and private collections on national and local levels. Past exhibitions include the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; the Lemberg Gallery, Birmingham, MI; Fendrick Gallery, Washington, DC; Butler Institute of Art, Youngstown, OH; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY. In addition, he presented eight solo exhibitions at the Davidson Gallery in New York City where his work was represented from 1991 to 2018.
His paintings and drawings are included in numerous private and corporate collections including the Chemical Bank, New York, NY, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, Carnegie/Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, Southeast Banking Corporation, Miami, FL, and the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC.
He has been a recipient of the following grants: A Visual Artist’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1993; an Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Grant, New York, NY, 2003/2004; a Wayne State University Charles H. Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Award, 2006 through 2008; and two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, New York, NY, 2009 and 2018.
Mel currently lives in Royal Oak, MI with his wife Judith. They have two adult sons: Victor and Jozef.
Artist Statement
My work is an ongoing investigation of Latin America and Latin American culture. Half-Panamanian and half-North American, my identity is split, wrestling with two cultures and two languages. As a young man, I spoke English and often dreamed in Spanish. Travels to Latin America have provided the basis for my art by informing dreams and exploring subject-matter that is both foreign and familiar. Subsequently, my paintings are not documentations of specific places or events, but rather landscapes of memory, exploring a line between dream and wake time and striving for a balance between the sublime and the melancholy.
Throughout my childhood, I was privy to my Latino father’s personal stories, music, and language. These early experiences provided a precursor to my creative work today. In addition, Latin American literature, both Magic Realism (Jorge Luis Borges) and Realism (Roberto Bolaño) have been sources of inspiration. My paintings reveal polarities such as the modern vs. ancient, the secular vs. religious and text vs. imagery. The results of my observations are reflected by the language and imagery of my most recent paintings and in turn, broach the inseparability of crossed cultures. (Mel Rosas)
