When I first walked into Gallery 456, I couldn’t look away.


Melissa Ling’s show Near and Far had been running for a few weeks & I, breathless, was in disbelief that I hadn’t known about it earlier. Curious & compeIled, I spoke with the artist only a few days later. When I stepped out of the elevator, Melissa — kind-eyed, with dark hair falling in face-framing layers — walked to greet me with a warm smile. I knew our conversation would be sincere & honest. We stood in front of the paintings & talked about them. At one point, I thought about the possibility that my maternal grandfather might have crossed paths with her father. But mostly I looked on in earnest wonder as Melissa shared pieces of herself with me openly, vulnerably: her surgery in 2016 that led to a jarring lucid dream, & eventually to a series of immersive, blood-red drawings; her grandmother’s death; her anger & grief after the 2021 Atlanta spa shooting.


The work itself is technically elevated & highly intricate: all four paintings are thickly ridged with paint that builds uniquely dimensional backgrounds, balanced with airy, striated patterns in the foreground. The drawings are meticulously layered with more shadow & light than one could ever anticipate a monochromatic palette would give. But the feeling behind the work is what continues to matter most to me: anger, fear, sorrow, affection, & curiosity, all in equal parts. As Melissa talked through the labor of emotional excavation, unearthing personal histories, & family mysteries, I too felt I was finding something inside myself that I hadn’t seen before. This is what Melissa’s work asks us to do — to look at ourselves, our environments, & the people we love from a distance, & then closer.


And then closer. And then closer.


— Karissa Ho



"Portage 1978" (2021)
I want to talk about “Portage 1978” & “Out of Now” first. These two, to me, are magnificent, firstly because of the lighting, & the quality of the light. It's chilly, icy — the feeling of when you walk downstairs in the middle of the night & you open the refrigerator. Cold luminosity. So I'm curious to know why the temperature of the lighting was important for these two paintings.


It's funny that you mentioned these two together, because I did them back to back. I've only shown the two of them once previously — I always imagine them as a pair. I just feel like they're bookends to the same idea. Both of these paintings are based on photographs from my own family archive. I think that's where that luminosity comes from: the light that you get from old film cameras. I'm really drawn to that. Beyond the fact that these are people I do know, I think working from photographs, especially photographs that have a vintage tint, you get to see these people as characters to investigate. These were photos of them that were taken before I was born, before I knew who they were, as people. So looking at these images, as I'm painting them, is this investigative journey, even to think about the objects in that space. They're both transitional scenes & they have the feeling of a temporary home.


The objects in these paintings do also feel very important — the clutter, trinkets, medications, even the rice cooker, which of course is super classic. It’s the feeling of real familiarity, like I could be in my own grandparents’ home. So I can see both of these paintings very clearly in my head as installation pieces almost. I’d like to know how you feel these compositions specifically have a sculptural, dimensional quality.


I can kind of see it as a three-dimensional space. I think it goes back to the way I started these paintings, which was with the space, in a neutral color. As I was painting from my reference, it did feel like I was kind of sculpting with paint, picking & choosing certain objects that I was drawn to — maybe I wasn't so sure why I was drawn to them. But on a subconscious level, I was building this space, the story that I wanted to tell. So choosing certain objects & omitting others made it feel like I was carving a space, but in paint.


So who are these people?


This is my grandmother on the left ["Out of Now"]. The photo I went off of was of this apartment that she had in Hong Kong right before she moved to America. My parents got married in the early 80s in Hong Kong, then my mom moved to America. My dad was already here. I think six years later my grandmother followed after my grandfather's death. So this is where she lived a few months before that move. The one on the right ["Portage 1978"] is from a picture of my dad. On the back of the photo is written Kalamazoo — no, Portage, Michigan — & I had never even known that he'd gone there. He never told me that he'd gone there. This before he married my mom. I didn't know he was even in America at that time. It felt like a journey I was going on to answer all these unresolved questions. It was a job that he had that brought him to Michigan before he got his work visa, & before he married my mom in Hong Kong. So the space is a hotel space, an impermanent space that he's just passing through. It's home for a few days, but then he's gone.



"Out of Now" (2021)
Actually, my mom's side of the family is from Hong Kong, & my grandfather went to college in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He came for an exchange program. And then he just stayed in the U.S. But I still haven’t been to Kalamazoo.


I've never been either. In my case, I think Michigan was such a blip in my dad’s life that he was like, well, why would I ever tell you about this? But we ask our parents & grandparents for stories that are interesting & important to us. And as you get older & become an adult, more & more, you're trying to figure out the beginnings of things.


As I get older, every story is becoming more important to me. Like, my phone is full of audio recordings of my grandparents just talking.


It’s about preserving things.


Exactly. So I appreciate that these two paintings are paintings of preservation.


Yeah. I think all four of these paintings are exactly that. It’s about taking back the narrative & being able to tell the story ourselves. Actually, these paintings were all done in 2021. I started in March, right after the Atlanta spa shootings, which I had strong feelings about. And I feel like these paintings were for me to process, anger, sorrow, my frustration with the whole situation. Before that I had been taking a break from painting. But when that incident happened, I felt like it was time for me to go back to painting in a representational way, because it's important for me to tell the stories of my family in my own way.


Totally, yes. I want to talk about another family painting now, which to my knowledge is of you & your sister.


Yes, it’s called “Sisters of Natural History.”


I love this one. And I think there's such a strength in it, because of the confrontational gaze of the central figure. It feels very sober, very direct, & very adult, actually. It’s a stark contrast to the almost fantastical, fairytale-ish background. What was the thinking behind this contrast?


I wanted paintings in the series, for all the viewers, to have this confrontational aspect, even beyond the reference photos. Here, I wanted the gaze to go even further. These characters with their narratives, they're in this transitional space. They're also gazing towards a future that they're not sure about, but they're looking forward to it anyway. The figure in this painting — my sister — is in this very kind of adult pose. In a lot of immigrant families, children sometimes do take on parental roles. Whether in terms of translating or just being able to navigate the society that they were born into & grew up in & are more comfortable in, they do take on these adult coordinator roles at a much younger age.



"Sisters of Natural History" (2021)
How did it feel to revisit this childhood moment in particular? I mean, we’re talking about excavating, layer by layer, an entire family history.


That's the thing with painting. The series in particular is deeply reactionary, seriously in reaction to something that happened, but when I'm painting, I’m focused on producing. I think after the fact. But here I am, talking to you, & I can say all these things that I formed in my subconscious, that I was just trying to show through the paint. When I'm actually working, it's very much a methodical process, more about laying down the paint, seeing if that stroke works, if that makes sense next to the other one, building out the space & the story.


Of course. And all of the paintings feel really technical in their own ways, as well. How does your sister feel about the painting?


We're not very close, actually. There’s something very funny about working from these family photos of people who my relationship with is either strained or very close, or they're no longer here. My grandmother passed away when I was one, so I didn't get to know her. So a lot of diving into these family albums was about trying to see & figure out who these people were & what was important to them, where they were in the space, what their story was then.


I see. My favorite of the series is most certainly “Red Origins.” It's very different from the others, most noticeably in the close crop. That, to me, is so striking, because the result is that the image is very abstracted. Like, it’s very hard to tell where the jacket begins & ends. So I wonder, why this one? Why did you want the viewer to be so close?


What I see in photos are sometimes the little details, which can say so much more than the picture as a whole. With this one, I was just drawn to the detail of the bouquet & how the bouquet blends into the dress, the suit, the background; everything is this bright, vivacious red color. It's either red, or it's gold. And the tiny details — just a little flicker, the hint of a ring, the wristband, the gold watch.



“Red Origins” (2021)
When I look at this, it's like I could be looking at my own grandparents and great grandparents’ photos, even down to the Seiko bracelet watch. I do want to talk a little bit about the reds & the golds specifically, because these colors are very familiar to me. They’re important colors, & they have a lot of weight. They feel personal. I’m curious about how you feel color has meaning & weight — & why this red? And why this gold?


Growing up as, you know, an American, I was kind of embarrassed by all the red decorations in my house. Every holiday was just red, red, red. As an adult now, it's turned: I really want to embrace, & I wanted this red color to overwhelm. And for this piece, I also wanted to focus on the small moments in life. It's not always the big things that we remember. I also felt like this piece was a good segue into my drawing series. When I was curating the show, I wanted to put this on a wall, so that when you step back, you just see the painting & the drawings. They almost tell the same stories, in different ways.


Yes, let’s talk drawings! These are awesome & terrifying & kind of menacing — I feel they have a latent danger about them.


I'm glad you said that. I always wanted to imagine them as this beautiful nightmare. That’s totally what I wanted to come across. When you approach it, you know, you do feel overwhelmed by this vegetation.


So I started this series in 2016, but it’s ongoing. I feel like it’s evolved over time, but it’s the same assumption, the same idea. Before 2016, I was working on a lot of charcoal — black & white — drawings. And then I had surgery. And I knew I was going to be going under for the surgery. I had read this article about someone who was in surgery & who woke up subconsciously, sort of like having a lucid dream. That was such a big fear of mine, because I was having a lot of lucid dreams at that time. So when I went under, I did end up having this really intense dream of wading through this forest of bright red. The viewpoint would change from within the dense forest to from a bird's eye view. It truly did feel like this beautiful nightmare. I've never had a dream like that, since I only dream in black & white. That’s the only dream I've ever had in color. So that’s where the fascination with this almost bloody red comes from.


I started doing red drawings around that time, to try and think back on a place that I found so fascinating & terrifying at the same time. While I was working I thought a lot about how the way in which we perceive things is always changing. How do we see things? You could call this a beautiful place, & some people might perceive it as a horrifying place. Some people might be horrified to be alone in the forest by themselves, but some people might love it. That might be their dream.



"Idol" (2023)
Absolutely, they're very dreamlike. I want to talk about “Cardinal” & “Idol,” because they're different from the others in the disorientation & isolation of the white space. Why was it important for these two to have been drawn from a different perspective than the rest of the series?


I was thinking about who decides who belongs where, & in what place. And I was thinking about places that felt both natural & unnatural at the same time. Someone who lives in the city might still see trees all day long. And to them, that’s the only part of nature they might see, as opposed to someone who lives in a more remote place. So I took these trees & the shrubberies that have obviously been manipulated by humans, that are grown, that are pruned. And if I put them in a different environment, are they still natural? Or are they unnatural? When you take something out of its natural environment, there’s still a part of where it was before.


What about when you put something into the natural environment? In “Hull,” there’s a building in the middle of the forest that feels kind of estranged — postmodern in a way — because of the pastiche of architectural styles.


Yes, the building is a hodge podge of many different things. In the drawings, I use references from photos that I've taken of places I’ve been to before. And I usually collage them together to form a new composition. But for this one, I left the house as-is — so it is a house that exists in real life. When you see the house from this point of view, you see all these separate pieces; they’re like different pieces of a puzzle. Like, who lives here? What do they do here? What are all these elements? Is this the original structure of the house? Does anyone still live there? It could be abandoned. It just makes you wonder.


"Hull" (2023)
The more I look at these drawings, the more I feel that they are an exercise in looking. We go from the midsize view to the blown-up view to the very distant view. Do you find, after having worked on this series, that you see things differently? Or that you look at things differently?


I'm someone who always will look at the thing I’m probably not supposed to be looking at — I’m always considering stories in a different way. When I'm reading a book, sometimes I'm more drawn to the side characters. I think that's just part of my subconscious. Now seeing the drawings in the show all together, as a body of work, I can see that train of thought more clearly.


Okay, I want to talk about “Submission” last. This one is fascinating because of its elongated dimensions. It feels a little bit redolent to me of a classical Chinese painting. The artists are always using the dimensions of paper to move viewers linearly through a scene or linearly through time. “Submission” is the same & different, because there’s a swath of landscape across the horizontal position, but you're not able to move through it. I feel almost stuck, paralyzed.


I've had some people tell me that this one is the most normal one because it doesn't contain a house — it’s more about what people could have left behind, or any remnants. And so it's funny that you find it scary. For this piece, I was really interested in the negative spaces. It almost looks like there might be something there, but you have to search for it. It’s about the artifacts that are left behind.



"Submission" (2023)

Even as you talk about the technicalities of the details & artifacts that usually go unnoticed, and the ways in which you're exploring unfamiliar terrain, it feels emotionally compelling. Your own investigation has brought me into a very emotional space.


I'm glad. This body of work is personal to me. But I also want parts of it to resonate with other people — they might not have the same reaction that I have to the work, but that's okay. Everyone's going to look at the work differently: I create this work, & then I let it live as its own out in the world. But I just hope that emotion is brought somehow to someone that's looking at the work.


For sure. How do you see these practices, drawing & painting, evolving in the future, or even now?


My whole life, I've been alternating between the two. And for a long time, I saw the bodies of work as being very different. But in being able to show both bodies of work together & seeing them in space, the connection is more obvious. It's really special for me to have my first solo show with both bodies of work together.


I would love to continue working on more pieces like “Hull,” just because I think the size works with the way I want the viewer to view these drawings — to be fully encompassed in the space, to feel like they're inside of the space when they're stepping in front of it. The name of the show, Near and Far, does come from the idea that the drawings, especially because of the mark-making, make you want to step closer. The paintings also, I think, are works that you have to take in at a distance to see the story that’s being pieced together.


There are other bodies of work that I want to work on as well — but I feel like those are branches. These are the main roots of my practice. And I foresee them going, shifting and changing over time as I shift and change over time. And I would love to keep doing this for as long as I can.







"Near and Far" is on view at Gallery 456 July 12 - 26th, 2024. All images courtesy of Chinese American Arts Council / Gallery 456.



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