"drawing on new perspectives"
melissa m button is a faculty lecturer in the herberger institute for design and the arts at arizona state university, where she teaches painting and drawing. it was through her undergraduate studies in architecture that she began to explore the delicate balance between the natural world and the way in which life imposes its structure upon it. in many ways her work still encompasses these same ideas. she seeks to capture a moment where order/structure and chaos/nature merge with one another revealing an undefined beauty and balance that supersedes the individual and is part of all things.
the evolution of her work in recent years has been greatly influenced by her study and travels in china, having spent many years immersing herself in the landscape, and the traditions of chinese culture. the delicate structures of paper-cuttings, the intricate complexity of wood-carvings, and the beautiful fluidity of chinese calligraphy have all become elements in her work.