In Natural Selection, Melissa Scherrer Paré creates ethereal silk paintings and textured paper pulp vessels that honor the beauty and complexity of the floral and geometric patterns remembered from the textiles of her childhood home. Using a hot soy-wax batik technique on Japanese habotai silk, she paints layered, semi-abstract botanicals that drift across the surface like memories in motion. Alongside these textile-based pieces, Paré’s sculptural vessels are crafted of paper pulp—from shredded receipts, schoolwork, and medical records—molded over discarded containers. Together, the silks and vessels reflect a practice grounded in domestic materials and familial memory, where beauty is selected from daily life, shaped by hand, and reconfigured into intricate arrangements of bold color, intuitive linework, and organic form.
Paré received an MFA in photography from the University of Illinois—Chicago and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. Her work has been exhibited nationally and widely throughout Wisconsin, including the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts, the Villa Terrace Art Museum, and the Portrait Society Gallery.
