Artist Statement
I make anything that I can until I can’t anymore.
I try to make things that delight me, and hopefully they sometimes delight others too.
I also love to make awful things that are sometimes somehow beautiful.
Sometimes they’re just awful though and delight nobody.
I like to learn new things but also get better at old things.
I feel it is important to practice looking closely, critically, but also joyfully; to treat sight as you would listen to music or learn an instrument.
In an attempt to learn to see better, I earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in InterMedia and Digital Arts and a BFA from Radford University. Originally from and still missing the Appalachian Mountains, I can now be found in or around Baltimore, Maryland and rather like it here.
COMMUNITY AFFILIATIONS
2020-2022 Long Reach Studio Resident Artist, Howard County Arts Council member
Member of the The Light Ekphrastic Steering Group
Founding Member of The Yonder Cabinet Project
Member of the BioCommunications Association
EXHIBITIONS & PUBLICATIONS
2021 Frederick Arts Council – Holiday Showcase Flat File Exhibition – Frederick, MD
2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Brick Hill Plant Lab – Baltimore, MD
2021 48th issue of The Light Ekphrastic – online lit/art magazine
2021 Bio•sphere: An exhibit featuring photographs and installations by artists Melissa Penley Cormier and Mary McCoy – Howard County Arts Council, Ellicott City MD
2021 In Plain Sight(site) – LeMondo, group event, Baltimore, MD
2021 SPARK IV: A Brave New World? – Maryland Art Place, group show, Baltimore MD
2021 Bearing Witness – Hamilton Gallery, curated group show, Baltimore MD
2020 Covid Landscapes – Sense of Press publication, prose writing and photography printed, Baltimore, MD
2020 Window26 – CakeWeek Community projection group program, Baltimore, MD
2020 Coronavirus Lost & Found – online archive
2020 Merkin Dream – Group benefit show, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore MD
2019 Brilliant Baltimore invited panelist – Word & Image: Creative Collaboration with UMBC and The Light Ekphrastic
2019 The Light Ekphrastic August issue and Exquisite Fantastic project
2019 Fox Building Studio Residents’ group show, Baltimore, MD
2019 Marvin Heiferman, Seeing Science: How Photography Reveals the Universe printed by the CADVC and the Aperture Foundation Press, selected images, Reviewed by The Guardian
2018 The 2018 Athenaeum Invitational | The Cabinet of Curiosities, group show, Alexandria, VA
2018 Wave Farm, WGXC Acra Saturday Afternoon Show: Mollye Bendell (field recordings), New York
2017 Seeing Science: How Photography Reveals the Universe artist spotlight, online
2017 Maryland Art Place, Young Blood, juried group show, Baltimore MD
2017 Artists for Truth Benefit Exhibition, SpaceCamp, Baltimore, MD
2017 Glass Oil Blood, The Center for Visual Art Culture and Design, UMBC, Baltimore, MD
2017 SPARK! UMBC exhibition at Light City Baltimore, group show, Baltimore, MD
2017 Open Space, Publications and Multiples Fair, Baltimore, MD
2016 School 33 Art Center’s Open Studios, Baltimore, MD
2016 The Light Ekphrastic Exhibition, David Mikow Gallery, invited group show, Catonsville, MD
2015 School 33 Art Center’s Open Studios, Baltimore, MD
2015 The Light Ekphrastic, August 2015 Issue 23, online gallery
unless otherwise noted
all rights are reserved and
all images are copyright 2021 of Melissa Penley Cormier
please do the right thing & whatnot
Melissa Penley Cormier 