I am an interdisciplinary artist exploring the uncanny layers hidden under everyday objects. I’m drawn to secret spaces just out of sight—behind the refrigerator, under the washing machine, in the hollow of a wall. These places aren’t designed to be seen; they are incidental, leftover shapes created by utility. They reveal how arbitrary function can be, and how easily usefulness dissolves into something strange or forgotten.
I remake ordinary objects into surreal echoes of what we know, or hybrid forms that suggest familiarity without resolution. Cast out of paper and clay, turned inside out, or reassembled into new configurations, they become doppelgängers—recognizable yet unable to function. Like the overlooked spaces of the home, they carry both presence and absence: a trace of care, a ghost of purpose, the suggestion of a body no longer there.
At the center of my practice is the question of what remains when objects refuse their roles. A stove that will not cook, an oven that cannot bake becomes both humorous and unsettling. By creating objects that resist function or recognition, I invite viewers to linger in that in-between space—where memory and mystery combine with absurdity and play to open new ways of seeing the everyday beyond productivity and use.
Melissa Russell is a mixed media artist living in Las Vegas, NV where she teaches Kindergarten through 5th grade art for the Clark County School District. Melissa earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 2000 and a Master of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in 2006. She is currently enrolled in Low-Residency Masters of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts program at the University of Nevada-Reno.
On exhibit at Enterprise Library Gallery from January 22 through March 31, 2026
Monday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Tuesday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Wednesday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Thursday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Friday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
Saturday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
Sunday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
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