Nathalie Melikian's works belong to the so-called exhibition cinema: her filmic installations borrow the cinema's means of presentation – a projection on a large screen – and above all, its privileged form – the fictional narrative. But these films, presented in loops on large-format screens within a gallery or museum space, include no dialogue and no image: the screen reveals a succession of title cards containing very general, elliptic words and phrases describing the film we do not see: the story, the locations, the protagonists, the actions, the camera movements, the editing and so on. But the sound effects, background atmosphere and music serve to fill in the gaps of the visible and construct a semblance of narrative. This basically parodic setup provides the opportunity for an analysis of the formal and narrative conventions of mainstream fiction film.

Nathalie Melikian earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia in Canada and a Masters in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College of the University of London. She has had solo exhibitions at the Frankfurter Kunstverein (Germany, 1999), the Centre for the Contemporary Image in Geneva (Switzerland, 1999), the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (1999), the Malmö Kunst Museum (Sweden, 2001), the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (Belgium, 2002) and the Vox centre (Canada, 2005). She has also participated in ma,ny group exhibitions, including 'Melodrama' (Centro José Guerrero, Museuo de Arte Contemporáneo in Vigo, Spain, 2003), 'Shadows of Productions' (Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada, 2004), 'Thriller' (Edmonton Art Gallery, Canada, 2004), 'Horror, Science Fiction, Porn'  (Art Gallery of York University, Canada, 2005), 'Projections' (Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Art Gallery of Alberta, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Canada, 2007-2009), as well as at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2008). She lives and works in Vancouver and teaches regularly at the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden.

Olivier Asselin

Translated by  Miriam Rosen