Melissa Sutherland Art

03/11/2026

Happy Birthday Melissa. I love you girlllllll 😘 period.

02/02/2026

Week 2 at is officially wrapped 🖤 Feeling so, so, so grateful for this time to slow down, think, be, and gently work through ideas in such a beautiful studio space.

This Thursday, February 5, 2026 we’re opening our studios to the public from 5–7pm. It’s open to the community, with some beverages and snacks to share ✨ Come by, say hi, and see what’s been taking shape.

01/22/2026

✨ One week in at ✨
Today marks one week as Artists-in-Residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA. Already feeling the shift that comes with time, space, and focused making. Grateful to be here from January 15–February 10 alongside this incredible group of artists:

Felipe Shibuya ()
Camila Buxeda ()
Anna Hawkins ()
Mehdi Darvishi ()
Yuki Maruyama (.maruyama)
Melissa Sutherland Moss ()
Woohee Cho ()
Shrimanti Saha ()
Dusty Levesque ()
Chenlu Hou ()

09/02/2025

After a tumultuous summer of grad school and wrapping up my thesis, I promised myself an extended period of rest. And while I’m still honoring that—just in a different way—I’m thrilled to share that I’ve accepted an adjunct professor position teaching Color Design at MICA. 🌈

I’m honored and grateful to be considered for this role, and excited to expand my practice in this new way.

This weekend, I celebrated with exactly what I needed: rest, family, and a visit to the Guggenheim. ✨

08/04/2025

The works in this upcoming show “Timeless” are deeply personal to me. This was the body of work I submitted with my MFA application to MICA. A few pieces have found new homes since then, but what remains still carries the weight of that moment—who I was, what my voice sounded like, and how I was shaping myself through the act of making.

The pieces were created between 2019–2020, and the photos you see of me here are also from that time. I wanted to include them to honor the version of myself who was doing the dreaming, the experimenting, and the becoming.

Timeless opens August 15th. I’m honored to share the space with an incredible group of Baltimore-based artists from different generations. The show is a meditation on time—not just in the work itself, but in how we live, grow, and pass things between us.

Come see what remains, what’s changed, and what continues.

art exhibition, Statement 2025/Timeless (Style Past,Present, and Future)
Opening: August 15 7-9pm
1007 N Charles St. Baltimore, MD

07/31/2025

And just like that… three and a half years flew by.
So many tears. Ego bruised and mended.
Victories I never saw coming.
Endless days of questioning, learning, and reimagining who I am and why I make.

Baltimore — I love you.
You gave me more than I knew I needed.
You held me, stretched me, challenged me, transformed me.

How could I ever repay you?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart 🫶🏾💫

07/15/2025

I work with burlap because it holds history. It’s rough, worn, and honest—like the hands that carried coffee, bananas, sugar… It reminds me of labor, of migration, of things packed and unpacked across borders. It’s a material that doesn’t try to be beautiful, but becomes beautiful through memory and use.

07/11/2025

I see my work as connected to what Christina Sharpe calls 𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌 — living in the wake of slavery’s afterlives, of colonial legacies, of migrations that carried my ancestors across seas and borders. Lately, I’ve been experimenting through performance with how both grief and joy can exist side by side — how they can breathe in the same moment, in the same body.

𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝙱𝚊𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎, 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙰𝚛𝚝 𝚆𝚊𝚕𝚔, 𝟻–𝟿𝚙𝚖 𝚊𝚝 𝚁𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚜 𝙶𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝙻𝚊𝚣𝚊𝚛𝚞𝚜 𝙸𝚅 𝙲𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 — 𝟷𝟹𝟷 𝚆. 𝙽𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚑 𝙰𝚟𝚎. 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟻 𝙼𝙵𝙰𝚂𝚃 𝚌𝚘𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚋𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙸’𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎, 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 — 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎. 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎. 🖤✨ 📷

07/11/2025

06/30/2025

This body of work is a tribute - a honoring for those who crossed waters and borders arriving in Costa Rica for a better life. For those who arrived in Port Limón to build railroads to support Costa Rica’s life line - coffee... and at that time you couldn’t even go where the coffee went, you couldn’t cross those borders, it was illegal.

I’ll say this - the body remembers what history forgets. Performance allows me to hold time, tension, and memory all at once—offering myself as both witness and vessel. To perform in my installation after months of labor, reflection, and building - was to feel time stretch and fold. A quiet fullness. A shared breath. I’m grateful for every gaze, every pause, every question & every moment held with me. May we keep remembering. 🌊✨ And a special thank you to my dramaturgical support, aaron moore ellis photography 📷 .theartist

06/24/2025

3 years and 4 summers… it’s all led to this moment. My MFA Thesis Show opens TONIGHT at MICA’s Fred Lazarus IV Center from 5–7pm. I’ll be doing a flash performance at 5:30pm — come thru if you’re near!

The first slide is a self-portrait I took earlier this year in my studio. I’m there — bundled up. Drop some 👀 if you can see me…

It’s surreal to be closing this chapter, but I’m so excited for what’s ahead. I’ll keep pushing myself — in my work, in my spirit — in ways that feel true to me.

We made it!!!

06/18/2025

3 days into my MFA thesis install and whewwww chileee! 😮‍💨 The deadline is Sunday and I lowkey feel like time is evaporating. Last night I got home at 1am thinking… did I bite off more than I can chew?! 😂

But even through the fatigue, I’m holding close what some of this work is about: movement, access, visibility, what gets concealed—by choice or by force. These ideas are sitting heavy with me as I build, arrange, and revise in real time.

Grateful for every hand, eye, insight, piece of feedback, and site visit along the way. None of this happens alone. Thank you. We’re almost there!!! 🖤✨