Melanie Teresa Bohrer grew up in Munich, Germany, received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and previously her BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design.

“I am interested in loss, and in turn the adaptation of our bodies and minds to traumatic experience. My work is in direct conversation with my internal and external landscapes, as I process personal and national suffering. As a German artist, I feel obliged to translate—both through visual and literary language—the collective guilt of my home country. This indebtedness has born a fascination with the human desire to communicate despite linguistic, cultural, physical or other impediments. The sculpture and imagery I create, evokes the human form, explicitly referencing displacement and uncertainty of figures. Object making allows me to understand the emotional implications of living between continents and customs, and my existential aspiration to comprehend and share pain.”

prisoner of (mourning), 2016, digital photograph
prisoner of (mourning), 2016, digital photograph
prisoner of (mourning), 2016, digital photograph
studio installation, 2015, mixed media
no use crying over spilled milk, 2015, plaster, fabric and zipper