JEFFREY MELO 
Ameyn 
May 15 - June 28, 2026 
Opening Reception: May 15, 2026, 6-8 PM

McBride / Dillman is pleased to present Ameyn, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Jeffrey Melo, opening May 15, 2026, with a reception from 6–8 pm, and on view through June 28, 2026.

In Ameyn, Melo situates faith within a landscape of instability shaped by crisis, repetition, and emotional fatigue. The work emerges in response to escalating global conflict—from U.S. military engagement in Iran to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza—as well as intensifying domestic unrest marked by aggressive ICE enforcement. Against this backdrop, the paintings consider how individuals locate steadiness within uncertainty, and what it means to endure over time.

A first-generation Dominican immigrant, Melo grounds this inquiry in lived experience. His subjects—people of color, often women and children—foreground communities whose vulnerability and resilience are most acutely felt in periods of upheaval. Their gestures of prayer—hands pressed, heads bowed, palms lifted—become quiet acts of negotiation between control and surrender.

Context is pared away, focusing attention on gesture, light, and duration. Light stabilizes each figure, creating a contained, devotional space, while surfaces bear traces of abrasion and buildup that open into moments of clarity. Clothing is rendered with a precision reminiscent of Renaissance painting, lending the figures a heightened material presence and reverence.

Here, prayer operates as a repeated, adaptive behavior—organizing thought, absorbing fear, and marking each attempt to maintain form amid shifting conditions. Across Ameyn, repetition becomes a structure of endurance, tracing the effort to remain intact while reaching beyond the present moment.

Jeffrey Melo was born in the Bronx, NY and lives in Manhattan. He earned his BFA in Illustration from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2012. His work has been exhibited at Black Wall Street (New York, NY), Arsenal Contemporary (Montreal and New York, NY), and the Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, KS), among others, and has been featured in New American Paintings, The Wall Street Journal, Bleucalf, and Bleu Magazine. Melo has completed residencies at Arsenal Contemporary in Montreal and Greatness Shack in the Bronx. His work creates space for curiosity, accountability, and transformation, reframing familiar histories and prompting reflection on whose stories are told—and why.