Melissa Loney
Melissa Loney is an interdisciplinary artist from Omaha, NE (she/they, 1998). She received her BA in Studio Art from Hastings College in 2020 and is currently pursuing her MFA in the Sculpture X at the University of Arkansas.
My art practice questions generational histories of making by interrogating the relationship between aesthetics, domesticity, and labor. Through repositioning practices of generational labor, I expose acts of necessary making for the complex feminist relationships they hold. I am connected to this research's ability to build communal connections through making, which harkens to matriarchal work patterns and familial practices. My feelings toward this became a space for reconciling emotions, and further, the tension of capitalism’s exploitation of 'Labors of Care'—while also queering it. My practice seeks to be a meeting space for the community I want to protect by politicizing facets of everyday life.
The installation Kitchen STRIKE: who will you feed? Calls for all kitchens to go on strike until laborers of care are liberated from capitalist control. This rebellion amplifies the femme domestic labor, upkeep, and care that industries have exploited to operate corporate labor expansion—this exploitation is a form of colonization. Full Strike statement provided in work images!
