paintings: mojo

Working in close proximity and sustained dialogue for over 40 years, their practice has developed into a significant partnership. These paintings emerge from a genuinely shared process. Melinda and Joseph engage the surface collaboratively, each responding to the other’s marks. The result is not a merging of styles, but a negotiated visual language that holds both voices in dynamic balance.

Botanical forms become a conceptual and pictorial ground for examining human systems of meaning. Florals are not treated as neutral subjects, but as carriers of cultural values—projected, elevated, marginalized, cultivated, or eradicated according to shifting frameworks of use, beauty, and control.

paintings: joseph

stones & strings: melinda

A series of monoprints created during an artist residency at the Ballinglen Art Foundation in Ballycastle, Co. Mayo, Ireland.

botanical inks: melinda

encaustics: melinda

ireland: mojo

16 Paintings and 4 Drawings

Gouache, Acrylic, Natural Inks, Graphite

The result of a four-week collaboration between Melinda and Joseph Ostraff at an artist residency with the Ballinglen Arts Foundation located in Ballycastle, Co Mayo, Ireland.

Participation in this residency provided us an opportunity to put into motion a process of going somewhere, living there for an extended period, paying attention to our surroundings, and considering the pliability of converting circumstances into art. Ireland provided much to consider. Ever-changing qualities of weather and light on land and sea, layers and systems of human endeavor and history, and good conversations, all have found their way into these paintings.

It was the common ground of this shared experience that initiated a more personal conversation between the two of us. At times the exchange left us off balance as we navigated place and each other’s marks. That unsure space and the results have ended up meaning a great deal to us as we explore new avenues of collaboration.