GALLERIES: Melissa Scherrer Paré and Mike Paré Artist Talk

Melissa and Mike will speak about their artwork, their commercial and design projects, and living as an artist couple.

Melissa Scherrer Paré’s work uses the detritus of domestic life to create beauty out of the mundane.

Paper from credit card statements, medical records, daughter’s old schoolwork, receipts, coupons are shredded and mixed as ingredients into paper pulp. The pulp is sculpted over objects from recycling including chianti wine bottles, corporate branded water canteens, and used skin lotion containers, transforming them into sculptural vessels.

Her silk madhala-like paintings pull from popular motifs found in domestic textiles (bedspreads, curtains, tea towels) and clothing patterns created for ‘mature women’. She reorganizes these patterns, adding color, organic lines and free flowing shapes to form intricate mandalas. Although substantial in detail these pieces have a tendency to go off the structural rails as the intuitive linework strays away from the precise designs of familiar domestic patterns they originate from. The imperfections begin to form their own patterns building a visual arrangement of their own.

Melissa received her MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago and BFA from UW-Milwaukee and has exhibited her work nationally.

Mike Pare (b. 1969, Daly City, CA) is an artist working in the mediums of drawing and incense. He has a BFA in Printmaking from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of New Mexico. His work has been exhibited in the US and internationally. He has lived in Milwaukee since 2012.