"Integral, Not Derivative"

Melanie Prapopoulos believes in limits. Her understanding of art is sympathetic to the calculus in that respect, as the limits aren't constricting, but rather give definition to an area and ready it as a space of examination. Ultimately for her, however, there is a line that can't be crossed, one that can only be asymptotically approached. Beyond the limit is that space of interaction between the viewer and the artwork, a space that was created through the introduction of that boundary but in the end is a domain hostile to the artist.

This doesn't mean, of course, that she does not want her viewers to take a certain experience away from her artworks, but rather that she has the confidence and emotional maturity to refrain from dictating what that experience must necessarily be. For Prapopoulos, color is the grounding or perhaps the pathway - a synonymy even - with "emotional revelation", and though her art has limits which she has created - this color over another, this abstract expressionist technique as opposed to a formally impressionistic one - the quality of and direction of the emotional experience is out of her hands. And as such, there is an existential quality to her art, as all responsibility is remanded to the audience.

-Andrew Beckerman