Photo source: Alyson Shields, Writer and Editor at the Office of Communications at Brenau University
NGV would like to share yet another free art exhibition you might be interested in; that is, if you don’t mind traveling a tad north to the City of Gainesville in Hall County.
Melissa Huang is an assistant professor – of art, of course – at Georgia Southern University. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2014, Huang went on to pursue – and achieve – a Master of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting at Georgia State University in 2021.
She currently resides in the city of Statesboro, in south Georgia.
On Jan. 11, she will kick off the exhibition with a public talk at a reception for the opening of her exhibit at Brenau University’s Leo Castelli Gallery.
The reception will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in what is known as the Redwine Lobby – adjacent to the gallery of the John S. Burd Performing Arts Center at Brenau University’s Gainesville campus.
Features of Huang’s solo exhibition, include:
- Features
- Video self-portraits
According to the Director of the Brenau Gallery, Gena Brodie Robbins:
“Huang studies the desire and dissonance associated with portraying a specific or idealized image for a mostly digital audience. Huang’s works explore her desire to maintain a perfect persona and fulfill the roles society places on women, and the challenges she faced along the way.”
Alyson Shields, Writer and Editor at the Office of Communications for Brenau University – and source for this article – explains:
“Huang’s paintings and video works explore the polarity between her true self and an idealized image, inspired by technological glitches.”
Huang herself has commented in the artist’s statement provided by Shields:
“In recent work, I consider how those of us coming of age with the internet and social media have constructed alternative identities online—fantasies, really—that bear little resemblance to the person IRL.
I transform my image beyond believable authenticity: it is fragmented, replicated, and distorted to the point of becoming disconnected from my real body. Ultimately, I use this series of works to dismantle the complicated archetypes to which women must conform in our ever-changing cyber landscape.” 
Huang has had her art received nationally and internationally at venues such as the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, the Albany Museum of Art, and Whitespace nearby in Atlanta.
To learn more about Huang, give a visit to her website here.
Her exhibit at Brenau, which is launching on Jan.11 will be running – free of charge – through March 19.
