The Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) is delighted to present Metamorphosis by Melissa Aytenfisu. Melissa is originally from Quebec, Canada but is currently a 3rd Ward, Houston resident who has become deeply entrenched with the life that moves around her neighborhood. The work she creates is a reflection of her community and the relationship she has with it. From drawing, painting to make-shift print-making, her aesthetic is the true storyteller. Melissa’s incorporations of found-objects is not obvious at first glance. Closer observations will uncover her own twist on the ready-made style of artistic expression. This exhibit will open at HMAAC June 27, 2020 through August 22, 2020 and will be curated by Dominic R. Clay.

Melissa Aytenfisu’s Artist Statement

The concept for this solo show is Metamorphosis and suggests that, in times of darkness, despair, and degradation, there are elements of light, hope, and recovery. The detritus of violent and destructive acts can be harvested and reconfigured to produce work of uplifting beauty and meaning. The artistic process is thus harnessed to help trauma survivors regain their strength and equilibrium and journey forward with new energy and determination.

The genesis of my project, and the backdrop against which it finds meaning, is the physical, social, and emotional setting of Houston’s Third Ward. On a personal note, Third Ward has become a place of solace and recuperation for me. I moved there while recovering from a traumatic personal experience. Walking my two toddlers down my street, I saw the residue of hopelessness, pain, and misfortune: gun shells, mangled vehicle parts, jagged broken bottle shards, and charred clothing strewn across boulevards. In an artistic epiphany, I realized that, as much as these items were the debris of personal disruption and anguish, they might also be progenitors of beauty and meaning. I was thus inspired to begin a series of prints and paintings that would express this idea.