b. 1972, Honolulu, Hawai’i, USA; lives in Honolulu
Artist, curator and conservationist Melissa Chimera is a Honolulu native of Lebanese and Filipino descent . Her work investigates globalization, human migration, and species extinction. Responding to the global health...
Artist, curator and conservationist Melissa Chimera is a Honolulu native of Lebanese and Filipino descent. Her work investigates globalization, human migration, and species extinction. Responding to the global health crisis of COVID-19, The Promise critiques the disjoined experiences of the United States and the Middle East. Resting above the water and below a dove, the ship representing the United States is filled with medical professionals tending to a patient while physically upholding the Statue of Liberty. Below the water, a small raft holds so many people that several fall out and are seen at the bottom of the composition in orange life-jackets. Despite the jarring disparity between the ships, the virus microbes travel unhindered between regions. Chimera highlights the reality of a undiscriminating pandemic against the backdrop of war, immigration and wealth disparity.
Chimera studied natural resources management at the University of Hawai‘i and worked for two decades as a conservation manager. Her most recent project is The Far Shore: Navigating Homelands for the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan (2018). The exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War and concerns the contemporary issue of Arab immigration to America. Chimera is the recipient of the Catherine E. B. Cox Award from the Honolulu Museum of Art. She has exhibited internationally and her work resides in the collections of the Arab American National Museum, MI; the Honolulu Museum of Art, HI; and the Hawai’i State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, HI.