Sean Mellyn bio

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sean mellyn

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, 1965
Studied at Pratt Insitute, Brooklyn, New York (B.F.A., 1987)
Lives and works in New York City

Artist's Statement:
In the summer of '72, my family took one of its usual trips to Cape Cod. There were always plenty of kids running around, perfect cast members for Mom and Dad's foray into experimental filmmaking. On the first day at the beach, while Mom prepared spaghetti and meatballs back at camp, Dad employed us all as actors in his new film. We were to act out the dinner we were about to eat. To the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey," we formed ourselves into living meatballs and rolled down the dunes to the water (which was both conceptually and visually renamed "Pasta"). That was our motivation-the ocean as a giant plate of past and we were to join it-little floating meatballs in a huge sea of sauce and spaghetti. At dusk we joined everyone back at camp for dinner. Instead of preparing many meatballs, my mom had made just one giant meatball. It sat gingerly on a mountain of spaghetti, centered on a picnic table. Paper plates and plastic forks in hand, we poked at the giant meatball, pulling away golf ball bites until it all disappeared. My art making experience has always been ingrained in me--it's all sugar to me, a giant dessert at the end of a giant meal.

Selected recent exhibitions
2001	University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Locating Drawing, Lawing Gallery, Houston, Texas
2000	Jack Tilton/Anna Kustera Gallery, New York City Drawings and Photographs, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York City Haulin' Ass: Pierogi in L.A., Post Gallery, Los Angeles 1001 + 1 Nacht…, Landesgalerie Oberosterreich, Linz, Austria Collection Collections: Recent Acquisitions…, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara The Standard Model: (Game Face), Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, Massachusetts The End: An Independent Vision of Contemporary Culture, 1982-2000, Exit Art/The First World, New York City
1999	Distortion, Anna Kustera Gallery, New York City National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Shout Outs, Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, Texas Brooklyn, New Work, The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio American Abstraction/American Realism: The Great Debate, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
1998	Cold Storage, Anna Kustera Gallery, New York City From Here to Eternity: Painting in 1998, Max Protetch Gallery, New York City, Art On Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro Southern Exposure, Ambrosino Gallery, Miami, Florida Pop Surrealism, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Selected public collections
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, New York New York Public Library Rutgers University, New Jersey Whitney Museum of American Art, New York