DOUGLAS MELINI: Landscape Painting

"The artist describes the planks as 'reclaimed wood,' using a term that has a precise meaning in the recycled wood industry. In contrast to 'salvaged' or 'recovered' wood, reclaimed wood refers exclusively to wood that has been used for building structures, which can encompass anything from barns to gym bleachers. Sometimes called 'silver wood' for the silvery patina acquired from prolonged exposure to the elements, reclaimed wood is valued by architects and interior designers seeking an elegant rustic effect. Evidently, such associations hold little importance for Melini since he happily obliterates the prized 'silver' look with highly saturated, often blatantly artificial colors such as pink, magenta and orange."

- Raphael Rubinstein in "Douglas Melini: Painting Reclaimed" 

"They also evoke, albeit on a much smaller scale, the dense skeins of paint that are the dominant feature of Jackson Pollock’s 1947-1950 paintings. But, significantly, Melini declines the liquid paint mixture so crucial to Pollock in favor of a much denser consistency that looks extruded rather than dripped or flung. Like everything else in Melini’s paintings, these delicate tangles convey slow and patient labor."

- Raphael Rubinstein in "Douglas Melini: Painting Reclaimed" 

"In general, frames are expected to be supplementary to the artwork they surround. They are something added, as an afterthought, that can be discarded or replaced without any loss to the work. So, what’s going on with Melini’s work? Why does the artist enclose his 'paintings' . . . with modular units of wood (eight of them, in four colors, for each work)? Pretty quickly, we realize that while they may reference framing, these polychrome wood elements are not frames but, in fact, belong to the painting . . ."

- Raphael Rubinstein in "Douglas Melini: Painting Reclaimed"