MELANA BONTRAGER
OTHER PEOPLE’S CONVERSATIONS
Melana Bontrager’s latest body of work stems from a year of listening to podcasts while she works. Deliberately exposing herself to stories that differ from her thoughts and beliefs and finding common ground where there is seemingly none. Of this experience she says:
“My hope for humanity has been bolstered through the vulnerability of humans who share stories of redemptive light and beauty in the midst of a dark and troubled world.
Bontrager has her BA in fine arts from Taylor University, Indiana and studied painting/drawing at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy and at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Her MA in Art Therapy from Hofstra University has contributed to the integration of emotion and intimacy in her creative process.
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When I work, I often listen to podcasts. Some are information-based, and some are story-focused, but most are created in interview form. I like longer conversations that get into the history, journey, and sometimes pathology of the human experience.
Maybe because conversations around art have been limited with the pandemic-induced closure of galleries and maybe because I wanted a little more human interaction than I was “allowed” over the past year and a half, but whatever the reason, these conversations have kept me company, and given me the freedom to one-sidedly absorb what’s being said without the pressure to respond. The funny thing is, more often than not, I find myself wanting to enter the conversation, to engage with what is being shared. I find myself having my own side-conversations with the artists, actors, specialists, scientists, psychologists, pastors, teachers being interviewed; I have found that I have so much curiosity about and so much in common with my fellow humans!
While stories vary greatly from person to person, there are threads that weave throughout the experience of being human. I have long been sensitive to these threads, but interacting with the podcast medium has allowed me a slight variation on exploring my deeply empathic side. Listening to the stories of an eclectic catalogue of people who are largely strangers to me has allowed me to settle into a place that leaves less room for “us/them” thinking. I have been grieved by the polarization of our country, and feel that much of this division arises when we cease to listen to one another’s stories. I believe that as humans, we have a lot more in common than we often acknowledge. However, it’s almost impossible to find those commonalities when we listen only to views that mirror our own.
One of the joys of the process of preparing the work for this show has been finding how deeply I have been moved by the stories of people with whom it may appear—on the surface—I have very little in common: my faith has been challenged by the stories told by people from whom I hold dissimilar beliefs, my beliefs have been sharpened by hearing viewpoints that differ from my own experiences, and my hope for humanity has been bolstered through the vulnerability of humans who share stories of redemptive light and beauty in the midst of a dark and troubled world.
My artwork is always a metaphor for life. The fragmentation of shape that creates a broken but intriguing overall composition reflects the way the broken places in our humanness are the places out of which can grow the most beauty, healing, and connection. While we often spend countless hours presenting what feels most polished and put together, it is often the sharing of and entering in to vulnerable and tender places that truly connects us to one another. Listening to one another in these places can move us toward empathy and the beauty of connection that comes from seeing and valuing what IS, not the show. In my work I want to celebrate and call attention to those unique and wonderfully captivating, unexpected places.
In the art-making process, my challenge is always to create strong compositions with compelling color schemes that initially grab the viewer’s attention, but then hold it with the nuanced combinations of line and shape that continually unfold as the work is beheld. I see art as an invitation: to consider, reflect, and wonder. I invite the viewer to spend time with these artworks, considering them just as I have created them out of my consideration of other people’s stories; other people’s conversations.
