Melinda Braathen b. 1985, Oslo (Norway) | Lives and works in Los Angeles (USA)

Through her psychologically charged paintings, Melinda Braathen explores the experience of landscape, where the material and energetic interplay with the protean world of our sensations. For Braathen, drawing from nature is a way to body forth a reality of the world that is often far stranger and more alive then our best thoughts can reach, while simultaneously addressing its frightening unpredictability and constantly shifting essence.

Engaged in close observation of the natural world, Braathen builds up the surface of her paintings with variegated gestural marks that bring out the recognizable qualities of the painted subject while ushering in a deeper sensitivity to the environment’s elemental and energetic forces. The spaces she creates often feel like they could break open or shift at any moment. Mysterious light further evokes enigmatic and unseen energies. Memories, sensations, and emotions appear tied to the rhythms of nature through her distinctive abstract visual language, textures and color palette, seamlessly bridging myriad interior and external elements in a single, unified space.

Melinda Braathen (b. 1985, Oslo, Norway) lives and works in Los Angeles. She earned her BFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, US in 2007. Her recent exhibitions include Atmosphere (2024) at Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, US (2024); Charged Bodies, Golsa, Oslo, Norway (2023); Alice Folker, Copenhagen, Denmark (2023); Currents, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, US (2022).