French born artist Mélina Bismuth explores and questions the boundaries between photography and painting. Relying on the subtle beauty of color and a rigorous structure, she assembles and reconstructs her own reality, pairing realism and abstraction in order to undo and remake the world.
Bismuth's practice stretches through space and time. The Rebuild series reflects 6 years of wandering through more than 40 cities (Paris, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Bilbao, Porto, Berlin, Los Angeles, Tokyo…), collecting thousands of photographs of scaffolding, fabrics, reflections, and construction details. Each of her creations takes a myriad of images and laboriously transforms them into constructed facades, planets, floating shapes, and optical distortions. The originality of Bismuth's work lies in the pairing and rebuilding of realism and abstraction. Some individual works showcase imagery collected over 5 years. The adept perception of color and mastery of assemblage has been a common thread throughout her professional career. Bismuth's years of experience in the world of embroidery and fine jewelry have influenced her photographic practice, as she harmoniously brings together images as a jeweler would set stones.
After exploring personal artistic culture, analog photography and laboratory classes in Paris, she further developed her photography practice while studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts Nantes Saint-Nazaire. She has participated in many fairs and exhibitions, including the Salon d'Automne in Paris and the Off Festival of Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles.