Melissa Potter is an American interdisciplinary artist who works in handmade paper, printmaking, traditional crafts, writing, and video. She is a three-time Fulbright scholar award recipient and is Director of the MFA in Book & Paper at Columbia College Chicago. She holds a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and a MFA from the Mason Gross School at Rutgers University.
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Career
Potter's work revolves around ideas of gender, identity, and feminism. Her interests in socially activist art and the democratic potential of print media has resulted in a longstanding engagement with art from Eastern Europe, specifically Russia, the Republic of Georgia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Serbia. Her projects have received numerous awards from ArtsLink, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Soros Fund for Arts and Culture, among others.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and has been reviewed in publications including the New York Times, Art in America, and N Paradoxa. Her work is featured in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Base.
Works
Potter's early work was featured at the Bronx Museum of the Arts through the Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program. She was in the 'Regarding Gloria' exhibition curated by Lauren Ross and Catherine Morris at White Columns, an alternative not for profit arts space. Her recent film 'Like Other Girls Do' has been featured at festivals including the Reeling LGBT festival, the Bangalore Queer Film Festival, the Merlinka Festival, and at galleries and museums including Albright College in an exhibition curated by Erin Riley Lopez. Other recent projects include collaborations called 'Homeland: Chicago and Belgrade Diasporas' with Chicago-based artist Mat Rappaport, 'Craft Power' with Brooklyn-based artist Miriam Schaer, and 'Seeds In Service' with California-born artist Maggie Puckett.
Curating
Potter co-curated 'Social Paper: Hand Papermaking in the Context of Socially Engaged Art' with Jessica Cochran. It was the first exhibition to consider hand papermaking within the social practice realm. The project was funded by the Craft Research Fund and the Clinton Hill Foundation. Other curatorial projects include 'Among Tender Roots', the first retrospective of artist Laura Anderson Barbata's hand papermaking work in socially engaged projects, and the forthcoming 'The Longest Revolution: Feminist Social Practice' co-curated with Neysa Page Lieberman.
Writing
Potter has published widely on various topics including the art scene in the former Yugoslavia, social practice, and feminism. Her writing has been published in several publications including BOMB, Metropolis M, and the Good Men Project.