Melanie Deal’s (AM’78) artistic process is often unhurried. She carefully layers pieces of patterned paper and materials collected over the years—beads, gumball-machine trinkets, game pieces, vintage postage stamps, and cartoon word balloons cut from newspapers. A self-taught artist, she has made paper dolls, picture books, and comics since childhood. These media remain key sources of inspiration for Deal’s work today.

“My only agenda is to express my perspective on topics that interest or amuse me. Sometimes the topic is simply a combination of colors or a particular pattern,” Deal says. In Kong (above) she takes her cue from a plastic gorilla figure to showcase an array of black-and-white paper. In other pieces, she turns a critical eye on contemporary society: Internal Affairs (below) engages with women’s health issues and health care costs, multiplying a pictogram representing a woman and images of organs and dollar signs. Translating her subjects into tongue-in-cheek patterns, Deal invites viewers to see our everyday lives through her whimsical gaze.