### ILY2 NEW YORK | Now Open, Thurs - Sat, 12 - 6pm | 35 St James Pl, New York, NY, 10038 ### ...
Works
About
From adolescence onward, Melanie Flood (b. Queens, NY) has used the camera to regard herself and the world. Her practice is built upon relentless auto-documentation through which she explores her subjectivity as a woman and engages a critique of the “ideal” female body, while considering broader social scripts surrounding aging, sex, and feminine performance. For Flood, precarity and vulnerability are sources of artistic power that unites her work in a provocative, evolving record of lived experience.
Flood often manipulates subject matter—whether her own body, other people, inanimate objects, or scenes—with reflective mylar, screens, fabric, or studio lights, allowing her to control what is revealed and obscured from the visual field. She also incorporates elements of vernacular photography and iPhone pictures to emphasize the everyday absurdity of dominant beauty standards and commercialized conceptions of womanly “self-care.” Unflinching self portraits and irreverent still lifes encourage viewers to reconsider feminine-coded aesthetics that are usually relegated to the superficial and unserious. Within the realm of her work, Flood demonstrates a total willingness to look, expertly deploying the photographic medium as a strategy for greater understanding and representation.
Flood has had recent solo and two-person shows at ILY2, Portland, OR; Ruschwoman, Chicago, IL; Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, OR; and Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR. In 2024, her work was included in a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary photography at the Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR. Flood’s work and projects have been featured in Art in America, The New York Times, and New York Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, such as the Regional Arts and Cultural Council Grant, Precipice Fund Award, Oregon Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, and two Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Exhibition Grants. As of 2024, her work belongs in the permanent collection of the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR. An exhibiting artist and arts professional for over twenty years, she currently teaches in the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design at Portland State University. Flood lives and works in Portland, OR.
EDUCATION
2017 MFA Contemporary Art Practice, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2001 BFA Photography, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2026 ILY2, New York, NY (forthcoming)
2024 Pacing: Photographs by Melanie Flood, The Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR
2024 Designing Women, ILY2, Portland, OR
2022 Notions, Ruschwoman, Chicago, IL
2020 Notions, Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, OR
2018 Titty Bears | Wet Pictures, with Evan La Londe, Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR
2018 Mirror Mirror, Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, OR
2017 Passionfruit, Autzen Gallery, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2016 The Object Lesson, Bronco Gallery, Portland, OR
2016 Latent Desire, Carl & Sloan Contemporary, Portland, OR
2016 The Nature of Things, with Sarah Knobel, Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Subject Object, St. Lawrence University Canton, New York, NY
2022 Smart Objects/ Flattened Images, Well Well Projects, Portland, OR
2021 Bitter Cherry, Bleeding Heart, curated by Jeanine Jablonski Courtyard House, Aurora, OR
2020 Heathers, Rubus Discolor Project, Portland, OR
2018 Specular Fiction, curated by Lisa Fairstein Fresh Window Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 Companion Pieces, Anytime Dept, Cincinnati, OH
2017 Guest Room, curated by Charlotte Cotton, Der Greif, Berlin, Germany
2016 Of No Essential Consequence, Autzen Gallery, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2016 Salon: Portland 2016 Biennial The Studio Visits, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland, OR
2016 Continuous Lattice, Wallace and Grace Hayden Gallery, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
2016 The Artist is Pleasant, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR
2015 School of Art & Design Scholarship Exhibition, AB Gallery, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2015 Pacific Midwest 2.0, Inova Gallery Institute of Visual Arts, Milwaukee, WI
2015 The Milwaukie-Milwaukee Museum, Inova Gallery Institute of Visual Arts, Milwaukee, WI
2015 Pacific Northwest Photography Viewing Drawers, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR
2015 Radical Color, Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR
2015 ArtMix, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), Boulder, CO
2015 Salon Salon, Portland Pataphysical Society, Portland, OR
2013 Color Photography Now, Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR
2013 Philadelphia Photo Arts Center's 4th Annual Exhibition, Philadelphia, PA
2013 Off The Plain: Contemporary Northwest Photography, Place PDX, Portland, OR
2013 Photography from the Edge, Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR
2012 Works, curated by Amani Olu, The Gallery at Eponymy, Brooklyn, NY
2012 This is To Be Looked At, curated by Modou Dieng,Valentines, Portland, OR
2012 Small Prints, Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Festival, Boston, MA
2009 Group Show 30, Humble Arts Foundation, New York, NY
2009 Coal Show, Northumberland County Council for the Arts and Humanities, PA
2002 White Box First Annual Benefit, White Box, New York, NY
2001 Love 4 Sale, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
2001 Postcards from the Edge, Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, NY
2001 The Mentor Show, The Tribeca Arts Club, New York, NY
FAIRS
2025 EXPO CHICAGO, ILY2, Chicago, IL
2025 Felix Art Fair, ILY2, Los Angeles, CA
2016 NADA Miami, Fourteen30 Contemporary, Miami Beach, FL
GRANTS, AWARDS, & RESIDENCIES
2023 Arts3C Grant, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Portland, OR
2023 Career Opportunity Program Grant Award, Oregon Arts Commission and The Ford Family Foundation, Portland, OR
2023 The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Exhibition Grant, Portland, OR
2023 Professional Development Award, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2022 Artists Resilience Award, Oregon Arts Commission
2022 The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Exhibition Grant
2020 Individual Artist Fellowship, Oregon Arts Commission
2020 Professional Development Award, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2019 Professional Development Award, Portland State University, Portland, OR
2017 Jury Commendation, Arlene Schnitzer Visual Arts Prize Portland State University, Portland, OR
2016 Precipice Fund Grant Recipient Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
2015 Simon Benson Award Portland State University, Portland, OR
2015 Xenia Artist Residency, Seattle, WA
2014 Honorable Mention, Camera Club of New York Annual Exhibition, juried by Charlotte Cotton, New York, NY
2014 Artistic Project Grant Recipient, Regional Art and Cultural Council, Portland, OR
2000 Artist in Residence European Institute of Design, Milan, Italy
COLLECTIONS
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, NY
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Miller Meigs Collection, Portland, OR
Exhibitions
& Events
Press
Documenting the Changing Self: Melanie Flood at Fourteen30 Contemporary
Variable West
Fall 2020
Download PDF
Variable West
Fall 2020
Download PDF