Isa Melsheimer

Isa Melsheimer exhibited drawings and sculptures at the Locker Plant in February 2005. The sculptures were inspired by two familiar and outsized features of the West Texas landscape: El Capitan and Donald Judd. El Capitan is one of the largest peaks in the Guadalupe mountain range; Melsheimer’s rendition of it, entitled Mountain, stood approximately two feet high and was constructed by gluing together shards of broken glass, all collected locally by the artist. Set on a low, crude wooden pedestal in the front room of the Locker Plant, Mountain paid tribute to its more grandly scaled counterpart while also evoking a cairn of molten slag. In the Locker Plant’s back room Melsheimer displayed a sculpture constructed from screen mesh and modeled on Donald Judd’s unfinished concrete building at Chinati. Standing roughly eight inches tall, the sculpture was embroidered with diminutive images drawn from Texan inconography: two cowboys at rest on a fence; a bucking pick-up truck; sotols and cacti abloom; and hovering above them all, a U.S. Army tank. Melsheimer also exhibited a series of gouaches made during her stay in Marfa.

Melsheimer has participated in many exhibitions throughout Europe. In 2004 she exhibited work at Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, The Netherlands. In May-June 2005, following her Chinati residency, Melsheimer had a solo exhibition at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff in Paris. She is represented by Galerie Barbara Wien in Berlin, where she currently lives.