Biography
Melissa Cody is a fourth generation Navajo weaver and textile artist raised on The Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona. Working in the Germantown Revival style, Cody deconstructs classical bounds by incorporating unusual color schemes and juxtaposing bold, sharp lines with non-traditional symbolism mined from urban culture, poetry, music and street art. Creating contemporary fine art in a forum historically viewed as female craftwork, Cody purposely employs the same variety of commercial yarn that traders often brought to Navajo weavers in the latter half of the 19th century. This material context exemplifies Cody’s multi-faceted practice, straddling time and place, class and category. Cody has been an artist in residence at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Recently she was included in the SITE Santa Fe SITElines exhibition Casa Tomada; Self, Made at the San Francisco Exploratorium and Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles at the Heard Museum.
Selected Works
Exhibitions
