Statement
I am an installation artist that obsesses in multiples, using them to fill space and surround the viewer. I push the medium of printmaking—pulling the prints from the wall and indulging in repetition and pattern. I am drawn to the concept of the multiple to reference the reiteration of objects and ideas in our culture. My current artwork correlates water with emotions, reveling in blue, a color that is at once melancholy and calming. It is inspired by ideas of being swept away by the sea of life, as if the ocean just flooded through your home and swept it away. It considers the feelings of chaos that enters our daily lives—the swirl of little stresses like bedtime, dinner, meetings, and deadlines, combined with larger cultural issues of climate refugees, rising sea levels, water scarcity, and climate change. How do we manage all this and stay afloat?
Bio
Melissa Haviland is a printmaking-based installation artist who lives and works in Athen, Ohio. Haviland’s works have shown in 30+ solo exhibitions over 20 years. Currently she is producing work for solo exhibitions at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum and the Greenville Center for Creative Arts. Haviland has received 4 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards (2009, 2015, 2019, 2025) since establishing herself in Ohio. Haviland has participated in artist residencies at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (2021), the Lloyd Library and Museum (2020), Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India (2014), Ucross Foundation (2012), and Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2011). Haviland regularly receives internal project grants from Ohio University to fund her artmaking, research, and the fieldwork necessary to her practice. Her work is directly influenced by research and travels to archives, factories, mines, etc. in India, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. Haviland received a BFA from Illinois State University in 1998 and an MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2002.