Melanie June Dorson, Prints & Drawings

new work	etchings & artist's books	about	contact::blog

Chasing the Oracle, artist's book with four etchings/aquatints.
As a printmaker, I am oriented in my artwork toward the surprising, the accidental and the unreachable. My recent prints and artist's books offer episodic depictions of explorers pursuing mysterious and uncertain objects and destinations. In my books, the sequences of images are suggestive of a search for long-lost secrets, but presented in a way that resists easy or readily identifiable narrative structures. My artistic process is designed to build on the subtle workings of the unconscious and the power of widely shared myths and archetypes. My current projects express the childlike hope that secrets might be both mysterious and yet within our grasp, combined with an adult recognition of both the power and the artifice in the act of interpreting sequences of events and images.

My Teeny Tiny Ever-Shrinking Island, artist's book with five etchings/aquatints.


Selected Recent Exhibitions 2021 BIG INK Large Woodblock Prints, Color \| Ink Studio, Hazel Park, Michigan 13th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition 2021, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT. Juried: Christina Weyl Graphic Arts Workshop: Prints from GAW Members, STUDIO Gallery, San Francisco, California 2020 14th Annual California Centered: Printmaking Exhibition, Merced County Arts Council, Merced, California. Juried: Matthew Hopson-Walker, Assistant Professor California State University, Fresno 30th Annual International Small Print Show, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, Illinois 12th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition, Bendheim Gallery, Greenwich, CT. Juried: Tomas Vu-Daniel, Artistic Director for LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University 2019 Emerald Print Exchange, Emerald Art Center, Springfield, Oregon SF Zine Fest, County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California Bay Area Prints! 2019, The Compound Gallery, Oakland, California 12th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition 2019, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT. Juried: Tomas Vu-Daniel, Artistic Director for LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University Love, Negative Space Gallery at Dependable Letterpress, San Francisco, California 2018 Oakland Print Show, Classic Cars West, Oakland, California Zine Mart III at Fleet Wood SF, San Francisco, California Into the Mystic, Gallery 305, San Francisco, California BIG INK, 3 Fish Studios, San Francisco, California 12th Annual California Centered: Printmaking Exhibition, Merced County Arts Council, Merced, California. Juried: Jamey Brzezinski, Professor at Merced College THEN AND NOW, Dependable Letterpress, San Francisco, California 2017 Graphic Arts Workshop 65th Anniversary Show, Gallery 305, San Francisco, California SF Zine Fest, County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California Love is Still Here . . . , Gallery 305, Graphic Arts Workshop, San Francisco, California Up to the Moment, Gallery 305, San Francisco, California By Way of Water, Pop-Up Exhibit & Aquatint + Chine Collé Demonstration, Gallery 305, San Francisco, California First Friday, The Shop at Flywheel Press, San Mateo, California A Conversation with our Archives, Gallery 305, San Francisco, California 2016 San Francisco/Yokohama, Launch Pad Gallery, Yokohama, Japan & Graphic Arts Workshop, San Francisco, California Graphic Arts Workshop & Print Club of Rochester Portfolio Exchange, Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo) Lab Space, Rochester, New York & Graphic Arts Workshop, San Francisco, California 2015 Little Worlds Alchemy, Window Treat Gallery, San Francisco, California Too Strange to Believe, Graphic Arts Workshop, San Francisco, California 2014 New Members Show, Graphic Arts Workshop, San Francisco, California Exquisite Corpse Art Collaboration, Arc Project Gallery, San Francisco, California Prints from the Graphic Arts Workshop, Southern Graphics Council International, Alley Cat Books Gallery, San Francisco, California
Education Notre Dame de Namur University, Art Therapy Psychology Program, Belmont, California M.A. in marriage and family therapy with a specialization in art therapy University of Michigan, School of Art & Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan M.F.A. in printmaking and fibers Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, B.A. in studio art Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory (MI-LAB) Mokuhanga workshop in Tokyo, Japan University of Georgia, Lamarr Dodd School of Art Summer fine arts study in Cortona, Italy

Mini-zines based on mandala drawing series:


All images © Melanie June Dorson, 2002-2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of images without express and written permission from this site's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.