WEST BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – “Field Notes,” a solo show featuring the recent works of Cambridgeport artist Melissa Rubin, will be on display at C X Silver Gallery, 814 Western Avenue, in West Brattleboro, from Jan. 17 – May 25. An opening reception was held on Saturday, Jan. 18, from 1-4 p.m. An artist talk featuring Melissa Rubin in conversation with Amy Beecher will be held on Saturday, March 15, from 1-3 p.m.

“Field Notes” is comprised of visual notations referencing the understory, the world below the canopy of the trees which is teeming with life, decay, the delicate balance in play, and the fragility of the natural environment. It is a meditative, emotional, and pictorial study, alluding to the entangled, interconnected webs of trees, branches, flowing springs, the infinite night sky, and the wildlife that calls it home. The raw materials Melissa Rubin encounters become deep inspiration for her imagery and approach to her art. The many layers of papers, paints, and various organic materials such as wax, marble dust, carbon, silver leaf, and clay, are evocative of forest underlayers and the interconnectedness of the wild environs. The understory, in a literary sense, is the architecture that undergirds, gives meaning to, and supports a story. In this regard, Melissa’s work reflects the expansive, psychological experience of the narrative the natural world reveals. Exploring the terrain and its impact on her relationship to the environment, she creates visual references to textures, branches, decay, and growth, all woven together to form a depiction of her outer and inner landscape. The media she uses functions as her personal vocabulary of expression, as proxy to emotional states of mind. Melissa consciously works with materials that help to facilitate a sense of light, darkness, mystery, and fragility.

Rubin, a New York-based artist for over three decades, recently relocated to southern Vermont. Her art has been featured in ARTnews Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Encaustic Arts Magazine, Wax Fusion, and on CBS This Morning. Rubin’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, and has been used in performances and movie sets. Rubin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and a Master of Education in arts leadership from Bank Street College of Education, also in New York City. She has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts, and received a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan. In 2017 she was a participant in a master abstraction residency at MASS MoCA, in North Adams, Mass. Melissa taught art to children, undergraduate, and graduate students for over 25 years. In 2012 she left teaching to devote herself fully to her art-making practice. Her art is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, N.M., and many of her works are in private collections in the United States and Europe. You can follow her on Instagram @melissarubinart, and view her work on her website, www.melissarubinart.com. More information is at www.cxsilvergallery.com/melissa-rubin.