Melissa Kraft - Dreams & Dances

About Dreams & Dances

The watercolors in Dreams & Dances show abstract figures and landscapes inspired by dreams, children's literature, and the meaning of home.

These paintings integrate memory and imagination, creating elements of fantasy reflected in bright, saturated colors and shapes. The work in this show is an interpretation of moments and places inspired primarily by the characters of fairy tales and by stories from around the world. The imagery of the paintings incorporates the figures, dreams, dwellings and landscapes described in those stories.

About the Artist

Melissa Kraft is a New York City artist who works in watercolor, silkscreen and collage. She arrived at painting by way of the theater, beginning her study of visual art after fifteen years in eight countries as an actress, storyteller and producer.

Ms. Kraft has exhibited throughout the United States, most recently winning an award in a juried exhibition in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Her work is permanently installed at the Legal Aid Society in New York City, the Earlyworks Children's Museum in Huntsville, AL (as
part of the Interdependence Tree exhibit), and can be found in a number of private collections. On her Tree artwork she embroidered the following, which bears a connection to the stories and themes in Dreams & Dances: Words of peace in many languages, paper and
threads in many colors - each supports and balances its neighbors.