ON::View Artist Residents – 2025 — ARTS Southeast

Melinda Borysevicz is an Italian-American figurative artist currently living and working in rural southern Italy. After participating for many years in Savannah Georgia’s vibrant creative scene, she travelled to a village not too far from her ancestral home in southern Italy. “A couple months away” has turned into several years after Borysevicz simply stayed to continue to paint. Her narrative portrait and figure paintings spring directly from her personal experience of having re-discovered her ancestral home. “I’ve been intrigued by the theme of processions the past few years, initially inspired by the religious processions that happen with regularity in every village in the valley where I live in southern Italy. These processions recall ancient local practices of bringing gifts to the gods that once protected this area and they mirror similar events in every culture. There is power in a group of people all walking together, united in celebration, prayer, exodus; liberation…** I started to imagine what a contemporary Savannah procession might look like** ...an assembly of characters moving together towards their to-be-determined destination. Where are we going? What do we carry with us? Who are we surrounded by? What obstacles might we face? Who is reluctant, who is watching, what/who will be left behind?The figures and faces for this work will come directly from Savannah’s historic and contemporary milieu : portrait sittings will be open to the public, leaving space for spontaneous participation and conversations about the past, present, and future of Savannah.”

studio space, accommodations