SIGN OF THE TIMES: a two woman exhibition featuring Chelsea Wong and Melissa Sims

Chelsea Ryoko Wong is a painter, printmaker, and ceramicist based in San Francisco. Her work captures world culture and contemporary life—exploring everything from travel to tai chi, the meaning of life, and lusting after a pair of good shoes. Figures intersect and mingle, creating a complex and lively narrative. Wong’s work has been praised as vibrant, enigmatic and full of curiosity, all with a slyly humorous bent.

Melissa Sims is a fine artist currently living in Atlanta, Georgia. She lived in Los Angeles for the last 17 years, and just recently moved back to her home state. Her paintings are brightly colored collage style pop art images layered on wood using oil and acrylic, then topped off with a shiny thick resin finish. She received degrees in photography and art history but after college she got a job in a painting “sweatshop” where she painted hundreds of paintings a year.  It was there that she learned many painting techniques from her artist coworkers. She combined that knowledge with her photography, imagination, and sense of humor and started to create what you see today. Although her subject matter may slightly change due to changes in her life, sexy pinup to a child’s toy, the spirit of her paintings remain the same, life is too short and uncertain….smile.