Zoe Bradley at Galeria Melissa

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Posted 2017-06-17 by Caroline Haack ⇒ follow

Fri 16 Jun 2017 - Fri 22 Sep 2017

Situated in the heart of Covent Garden, Galeria Melissa is a complete hybrid shop. Unlike anything else, especially in this tourist area where you can only find classical flagship stores, it is at the same time a shoe shop and a gallery space. Melissa is a shoe brand offering pop plastic shoes, but the brand is still interesting in offering a fun and artistic environment to sell their product. At the moment, a beautiful residence by the artist Zoe Bradley is invading the different areas and floors of the shop, from June 16th.

As Melissa is quite a colourful and fun shoe brand, it seemed very logical that the artist they invited to their London shop would follow the same idea. Zoe Bradley's work is bright, "neon" and flowery but her main material is paper, which she uses in complex origami shapes. She is interested in the use of it in fashion, using elements of it in her art. It is linked with Melissa's next shoe and bag collection: Flygrl. It also has very exotic and summery vibes, with links to Melissa's origin as a Brazilian brand and the fact that most of their shoes are aimed at warmer weather.

Going into the gallery, you will first discover the work on the ground floor, with a large suspended Lotus sculpture and a display on the big LED screens. It is an animation of CGI images of the flowers that keep coming back into Bradley's work, showcasing patterns but also what can be seen as large coloured displays. You will also be able to discover the very futuristic displays of Melissa shoes, with floating glass cases going up and down.

The main installation is downstairs: the garden oasis where the walls are covered in large-scale prints of flowers and a huge central Lotus sculpture that is slowly rotating on a plinth. In total, Zoe used 1,000 sheets to make the 400 flowers found in Neon Garden, her installation in the London flagship.