Baert Gallery is pleased to present new paintings by Melinda Braathen at the Armory Show 2026.
Show Dates & Times
Thursday, September 24, 2026: VIP Preview, 10 am-7 pm
Friday, September 25, 2026: 11 am–5 pm
Saturday, September 26, 2026: 11 am–6 pm
Sunday, September 27, 2026: 11 am–5 pm
Location
Booth P48
Javits Center
429 11th Ave
New York, NY 10001
Melinda Braathen’s paintings explore the intersection of consciousness and its reciprocity with the natural world. There is a sense of uninterrupted time in her paintings, where a seemingly fleeting moment can unfold and encounter something more ancient, unfamiliar, sacred or uneasy. Braathen’s paintings create spaces where the boundaries between internal psychological states and external natural forces blur, advancing her inquiry into the concept of consciousness as a fluid state that extends beyond corporeal limits. Her paintings become somatic visuals and ontological maps where the body is no longer a discrete vessel, but a porous site of exchange.
Braathen begins by taking several personal photographs of one location until something opens — a deeper movement that somehow reaches towards the mysterious, an inherent intelligence, a knowingness — that can be further considered and cultivated in her painting practice. This process has become even more vital for Braathen as she has recently entered motherhood and grapples with outsourcing vital human skills to the efficacy of technology. In these recent paintings, the subject is painted in delicate reciprocity with the animate landscape, interlaced with intangible, energetic qualities that seemingly diverge from its natural light and logic.
Braathen paints as a way to instill an understanding within the viewer of the emotional energy she experiences, employing a liberty through her color choices and energetic brush strokes to move beyond imagery that is purely representational. Her visual markers suggest a boundary between self and atmosphere that is constantly being renegotiated through sensory experience and temporal intuition. The result depicts nature as containing both renewable and ancient matter, time and eternity, the known and the unknown. All exist within a single moment.
Melinda Braathen (b. 1985, Oslo, Norway) lives and works in Los Angeles. She earned her BFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, US in 2007. Her recent exhibitions include Soft Bodies, UC Santa Barbara, CA, US (2025); Atmosphere, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, US (2024); Charged Bodies, Golsa, Oslo, Norway (2023); Alice Folker, Copenhagen, Denmark (2023); Currents, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, US (2022). Her work is included in numerous collections, including in the USA, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Norway, Greece, Nigeria, Czech Republic, and United Arab Emirates.
