Artist's statement 2016:

"On the Loose, a collection of 20 new oil on canvas paintings, celebrates my first solo show at Giacobbe-Fritz Fine Art as well as marking the 25th year since my debut exhibit in Santa Fe, in 1991.

My work has always been narrative in nature and this year is no exception. I tell stories, usually concocted from things that happen in my life, visually represented through simplified images, sophisticated surfaces, vibrant colors and text.

This year I do take a detour, however, from my usual theme-based shows and head-off into an alternative creative process with no particular roadmap and very little steering. I had only one guidepost: keep it loose. Loose had a couple of meanings important to me. One was staying very liberated in the free-form way I applied paint and two, being very aware of and open to thoughts and experiences that were hinting subject matter to me through my mind's eye. I took off on a ramble.

The shapes and forms I painted are a combination of memory and imagination, emphasizing my signature naive, childlike style; flat imagery situated on the front plane of the canvas, perspective rendered from multi-layering, oil paint inexact and painterly, stream of consciousness commentary with no preliminary drafts.

Whether a reflection on packing my bags for a trip, a wad of gum lodged on the bottom of my shoe, unearthing the old chair destroyed by my cat, throngs of birds hanging out by my studio, a nod to Dad's infatuation with Purple Martins, countless lovely moments with our pets or taking a crazy, meandering stroll through the ping-pong-ball-thoughts of my mind, this show was inspired from many disparate sources. As a whole, I believe it is held together with the connecting thread of my mantra: "hey! Go with the flow and keep it loose"!

Melinda K. Hall