Patrick Melroy
Patrick Melroy makes objects and experiences, he builds interactive art projects which allow his audience to engage his work physically as well as intellectually. Melroy received his BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland Oregon in 2005. He spent most of his studies in the Intermedia department where he developed an idea centric strategy to his art making. Directly out of his undergrad he co-founded the Bottled Lighting projects collaboration with artist Heather May Redetzke.
Melroy teaches classes at UCSB in sculpture, photography, and spatial studies. He received his MFA from UCSB in 2011 and was awarded a teaching fellowship in the College for Creative Studies where his classes have included Unreasonable Object Making and People Magnets.
Currently residing in Santa Barbara, Melroy runs an independent collaborative art space with three other UCSB alum. The Uppur Bunk collaborative art space offers cultural programming open to the public and will host the 2012 UCSB Department of Art Faculty Show. Melroy sees his teaching philosophy as specializing in creative guidance of students. Bringing them through their ideas and inspiration, working various questions of how and why until they arrive at a place in which they realize a project of quality and self-satisfaction. Melroy teaches students to see themselves as contemporary artists with the task of challenging the world through a deliberate commitment to a lifelong art practice.
Currently Melroy is working on two large scale participatory projects in collaboration with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art which will go on display in the spring of 2012.
