Artist Statement
I am preoccupied with the tense space between belief and doubt. As an interdisciplinary artist, I build new syncretic mythologies of worship, care, and mourning. Primarily working in sculpture and fiber, I construct parafictional installations and intimate ritual objects with clay and found materials (i.e., family heirlooms, upcycled fabrics). In a maximalist aesthetic—lush with faux fur, glistening chains, and candles—I transport viewers to bizarre parallel worlds where their disbelief can be suspended.
Often depicting feminine hybrid creatures and false deities, my work distorts and retells traditional narratives of sexuality, gender, and kinship from a contemporary queer lens. Speculatively, I write alternative histories—for example, reimagining the Roman wolfmother as a childfree founder of a sapphic mystery cult. With surreal heraldic imagery and campy deconstructed banners, I amplify the strange paradoxes inherent in spiritual and ‘wellness’ practices to foster new forms of unconventional belief.
Bio
Melanie Elyse Brewster (b. Miami, Florida) is a Greek-American interdisciplinary artist and psychologist based in New York City. Brewster’s solo exhibitions include: Field Projects (New York, NY), a parafictional retelling of the Roman Wolfmother mythology described in the New York Times as a show that “changes the game," Brazosport College Art Gallery (Lake Jackson, TX) and a forthcoming show at Wave Hill Public Garden & Cultural Center (Bronx, NY) on one woman’s metaphysical quest for the deepest backbend.
She recently had a two-person presentation at SPRING/BREAK Art Show (New York, NY) and other group shows have included: Wönzimer Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), The CAMP Gallery (Miami, FL), Bronx River Art Center (Bronx, NY), The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY), La Mama Galleria (New York, NY), Arts Warehouse (Delray Beach, FL), 100,000,000 (Kansas City, MO), Peep Space (Tarrytown, NY), Wignall Museum (Rancho Cucamonga, CA), and Koehnline Museum of Art (Chicago, IL), among many others. Her work has been covered in the New York Times, CultBytes, Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art, and Boca Magazine.
Brewster has been an artist-in-residence at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Vermont Studio Center, ChaNorth, and Guttenberg Arts.
Working at the nexus of two disciplines, she earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2024 and her PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Florida in 2011. Since 2011, Brewster has been a professor in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Columbia University where her research focuses on nonbelief, stress, and queer futurities. She maintains a studio in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn.
CV
Abbreviated CV is available here, full CV available upon request.