Melissa Dadourian

Item No. 1772773 : Melissa Dadourian, September, 1975, Unique Painting, 2005 D8DWE Description Oil on wood panel, signed on the reverse, unique. Provenance Directly from the artist. Measurements 17 x 20" Condition Artwork is in excellent condition. “Playgirls” explores the classical depiction of women in Playboy magazines particularly 1960’’s and 70’’s. Focusing on the Playmates as transgressive agents, rather then exploited models, I explore women's sexuality as a means to satisfaction and self-expression rather than as a vehicle of patriarchal oppression. The “Playgirl's” confident stare engages the audience, seducing them to look, but not enter. The empty backgrounds deflect the male gaze and the viewer is forced to confront the figure directly. There is something furtive in this gaze, and posture, as if the viewer has been cuckold. Out of context the figures are removed from the masculine world, and brought into an ambiguous space, where they no longer use eroticism to seduce the viewer. Through the use of contour drawing, each woman appears like a doll, free of social context, unconscious of time and space. I am utilizing the original centerfold text, which challenges the traditional, cliché representations of women, as they personally highlight their strong, fearless, independent nature. My “Playgirls,” embody the subtle femininity and unconventional freedom associated with female autonomy, possessing the dynamism needed to direct their own destiny. Melissa Dadourian’’s work explores desire, idolatry, and temptation. She represents sultry women in measured, sinewy strokes, often constructed in thread, and her painstaking reinterpretations of the feminine physique infuse the work with the palpable physical tension of seduction. Constructing a heightened reality that reveals not only the beauty, but the veneration for the female figure. The figures are appropriated from playboy magazines that she secretly gazed at as an adolescent girl. In her painting, installation and video work she eludes to the notion of female freedom. This freedom is expressed through a naiveté or innocence, whether the figure is drawn in paint, a piece of thread connected by pins or putting on a pair of nylons. It is all an attempt at heightening aspects of the everyday in order to see the beauty - the essence of life and the real. Melissa Dadourian received a BFA from Pratt Institute with a major in painting and an MFA from Hunter College in Combined Media and Painting. She also established a roving exhibition space called Chamber, in 1993, which continues to provide an alternative venue for artists, most recently in December 2004 with it’’s twelfth show. Dadourian has exhibited Internationally in Armenia, Australia, France, and Italy, as well as in Boston and New York. She has been awarded a Visiting Artist residency at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, in 2000 and at the Citè Internationale des Artes, in Paris, France, in 1999. Dadourian lives and works in New York City.