"I'm more of a daydreamer than a shopper, but to make these paintings I walked around the city, window shopping. When I was stopped in my tracks by an archetypal merchandise fantasy, like two muses wrapped in flowing, sequined, organza huddled below the caption 'It's a material world' in the fabric district on 39th street, I dropped a pin. I returned later to paint a study from life."
"While standing at an easel and painting each pinned mini-theater of commerce, I was mostly ignored by passers-by, but I did chat with shop owners, hearing tales of inter-generational family management and rent-raises that delivered a terminal blow. The West Village street maze is home to several immortal New York City shop-icons."
"Window shopping in New York City is like passing crystal balls on a conveyor belt. A pane of glass that reflects the engulfing city is also a portal to a vision of ownership. Artful, shiny retail arrangements suggest how your life might improve if you owned a particular post-apocaly"
Melissa Brown's exhibition Window Shopping features mixed-media paintings that capture the visual richness of New York City store windows. Using screen-printed photographs hybridized with painted passages, Brown documents the quirky displays and reflections found in these commercial spaces. Drawing inspiration from historical precedents like Rauschenberg, Johns, and Warhol, she explores windows as theaters of human desire and commerce. Brown's process involves walking the city, identifying compelling window displays, and returning to paint studies from life. Her subjects range from fabric district fantasies to iconic West Village shops like The Music Inn and Pink Pussy Cat, which she views as contemporary versions of 19th-century Parisian arcade displays. Store windows function as both reflective surfaces and portals to imagined ownership, offering visions of how life might improve through consumption.
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