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I first noticed Melanie Sternberg’s work at Hanabi in downtown Duluth. Shortly after, I saw some of her paintings at The Playground in the Tech Village and an opening at Zumba coordinated by the Limbo Gallery. She’s a bundle of energy and her work shows it.

EN: How long have you been making art? What kind of formal training have you had?

Melanie Sternberg: I have been making art as long as I can remember, always painting or just coloring! I still take a childlike approach to making art, having started painting as a childhood activity. Of course I took the general art classes through school and then moved into art as a career during my college years.

I began studying art as a figure model while studying business in Georgia. I moved to Savannah and became a painting and art history student with the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2006. My training stretches across many disciplines as my interests are quite broad. I regularly study emerging artists’ works and philosophy, and stay updated on art criticism.

Because of my business background, I have a strong eye for good design and like to incorporate that into my limited large-scale works. In making art I like to have my hand in every part of the process, from constructing the surface to the final coat. I love custom framing and attention to detail—that’s what it’s really about to me—a simple, singular open expression with great attention to detail and form.

EN: Who have been your biggest influences? Who are some artists who really get you excited?

MS: My influences are many, as I study art history and regularly watch the work of contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor, who again has a strong body of work on display in Berlin this summer. His multi-dimensional philosophies and sculptures are so powerful to our generation I could hardly not mention his name. Past influences… I love the forms of Matisse still, his use of line and weight, or rather weightless yet bulging forms. Colorists such as the well-known Klee and my all time favorite artist-philosopher Kandinsky.

It is funny to answer, as I see my “favorites” have stayed pretty true over the last 12 years or so. It is also most important to mention fashion. The fashion world is my number-one driver, as it is the forefront of popular culture and thus one of the building blocks to our art culture as we know it. The luxury industry plays so much on art historical context that artists are invariably active members of the culture of wearable couture art, or “fashion,” to lay people. I love anything that someone would normally not wear.

The best fashion designer of our generation right now is DVF—Diane, you are so amazing and globally impacting. She is a designer and high art maker with some of the most outrageous looks. Her fashion is art. No question, that is great to me. I am influenced by my peers the most. I love to see what others are working on and step into their studios. Materials and music are the basic necessary things for me. The choice of both is so important. I love to dance when I work, so the sounds have to be just right… and the pitch of color. I LOVE COLOR.

EN: What is your favorite medium and what other kinds of media do you work in?

MS: I love all mediums of art, but painting is my most approachable and most horrifying. I love the challenge of the white canvas, of the first mark, taking the chance on my personal vision of what the canvas could look like. As I am an intuitive painter, I like to allow the work to dictate its own end. I let the painting tell me when it’s finished, as if it says “stop.” There is always a peculiar moment when I’ve been staring at the thing for hours looking and looking, and when I decide there is no need for the splotch of pink or tiny line of aqua—all the parts are where they go. Sometimes the resulting image is a recognizable thing, sometimes they are open worlds of color, allowing the viewer to see and feel the awesome colors move as they make the surface new. This is the most exciting part of art to me, allowing others to experience my works in their own way, with no particular end.

EN: Where can people see more of your work?

MS: Currently I am planning the end of the year. My art works are currently available through myself, at my studio. I am planning two “small works” shows where someone can examine my artistic progress of the last couple years, a sort of mini-color retrospective. You will see my usual explosions of colorful form on many different-sized canvases and small boards. My new show will have works that are quite different, and I will have to update you as they are completed. You can also see some of my colorful influence on hand-painted furniture available at Art in the Alley Home in downtown Duluth. Please check out my Facebook page, “the painted lady,” for exclusive updates on my works and shows I will be participating in or putting on through 2014.