Installation view, Atelier 2, Tourcoing, France, 2015.
Melissa Ryke is an Australian artist currently based in Brussels and has a studio space at Level Five (where she is also a council member). Ryke studied Fine Arts in both Australia and France and completed the European Postgraduate in Art in Sound at KASK, Ghent in June 2020. She is currently undertaking a Transdisciplinary Artistic PhD at the ZHdK in partnership with the Kunstuniversitat, Linz.
Ryke’s practice-led research focuses on a critical and playful investigation of the quotidian and experimentation with installation and time based media. Through these mediums the key notion of a bodily experience in space is explored from a phenomenological framework. Recent projects have been focused on embodied listening; listening and recording as a sensorial experience.
Ryke is particularly interested in the use of humour to value play and artistic practice as an aesthetic habit in which to abandon reason. Humour is used a subtle framework in which time, the body as sensation and the quotidian are engaged with in my practice. This is often explored through collaborative efforts and engaging with absurdist notions of making.
Ryke’s previous collaborative efforts have evolved out of playful and critical responses to everyday moments. These performative moments are reframed through digital media to generate poetic and absurd notions of reality. Transitions between identity, action, purpose, space and the self are also explored through this process. Collaboration is a strategy that is constantly being explored as a dynamic approach to making new and exciting work. It is also the site in which critical dialogue about contemporary art practices is undertaken.
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melissaryke@gmail.com