Artist Profile

Melissa B. Tubbs has been creating finely detailed pen and ink drawings of architectural subjects for 15 years. She believes we should preserve and celebrate our built environment and the architects, artists and craftsmen who created them. Her purpose is to draw the public’s attention to the architecture and architectural detail that surrounds them through a medium — pen and ink — that draws the viewer into the art work.

The architectural detail that has been a consistent part of human history satisfies a need for beauty that all people share. As with architecture, it is the details that make the difference in Melissa’s work. Pen and ink drawings have a crispness and directness that is elegant and appealing. Form, line and light have more emphasis in black and white. She is interested in conveying the depth created by the contrast of bright light and cast shadows.

Melissa’s accomplishments have been numerous. She is the recipient of the National Association of Women Artists’ (NAWA) Medal of Honor and the Elizabeth Stanton Blake Memorial Award of $1,000 for Work on Paper in one of NAWA’s Annual Exhibitions in New York, NY. She also won the prestigious Eben Demarest Trust Grant, an award from Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, PA.

Most recently two drawings of hers won Third Prize in the 34th Annual Juried Competition 2007 at the Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA. A one-person exhibition of her work titled “Sunlight and Shadow” took place at Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL. Her group exhibitions include “Connecting Alabama,” Alabama State Council for the Arts Exhibition, Montgomery, AL, among others. She was selected as one of three artists to exhibit in “An Absence of Color,” at Marymount Manhattan College, New York, NY.

Six of her drawings were selected for inclusion in the “Montgomery & River Region Sketchbook,” a showcase book published in March 2005 by Indigo Publishing, Macon, GA. Her pen and ink drawings were featured in an article in the November 2004 issue of American Artist magazine. In 2001 she represented the state of Alabama in creating a three-dimensional architectural ornament of a historical home for the Official White House Christmas Tree.

Her work is in numerous private and public collections including Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, New York, NY, American Red Cross of Central Alabama, Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, Alabama, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.

Melissa lives and works in Montgomery, AL.

Praise for Melissa B. Tubbs

“She seems to find a unique perspective...each drawing seems to come to life.”
W.K. Upchurch, III, W.K. Upchurch Construction Company, Inc., Montgomery, AL

“Her pen-and-ink drawings are very good, very intricately detailed, and demonstrate a tremendous amount of patience. I think her work has been very successful.”
Christopher Payne, Professor of Art, Huntingdon College, Montgomery, AL

“The 90-year-old bricks and mortar of the Wiregrass Museum of Art’s Coleman Gallery find their echo in the carefully lined pen-and-ink drawings of Melissa B. Tubbs.”
Erin K. Schovel, Associate Curator, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL

“The unique examples found in this exhibition include the harmonic blend of distortion and realism in Melissa Tubbs’ “Bank Regions.”
Lisa Tubach, Art Critic, Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, AL