Melanie Elyse Brewster
WE WILL FEED EACH OTHER
May 28-July 4, 2026
Opening May 28, 6pm
Field Projects presents “WE WILL FEED EACH OTHER,” a solo exhibition of parafictional artifacts by interdisciplinary artist Melanie Elyse Brewster.
WE WILL FEED EACH OTHER explores the tensions inherent between caregiving and jouissance, as well as maternal instinct and childfreedom. Melanie Elyse Brewster tells the forgotten story of hybridized creatures, bound by pleasure-seeking and obsessed with reciprocity, and invites us to collectively trouble the bizarre fruits this ancient worldview may yield today.
Selfless devotion and nurturance are central markers of motherhood across time and culture. These characteristics form the backbone of beloved mythologies, such as the lupa capitolina (Capitoline Wolf) of ancient Rome. According to the legend, a wolfmother rescued exiled twin baby boys, feeding them from her own teats. However, the wolfmother is only remembered for this nursing, whereas the boys become rulers of a kingdom.
To counter this patriarchal narrative, a sapphic mystery-cult, Wolfmotherhood, gained followership across the Mediterranean basin. Using ceramic and fiber sculptures to create ritual objects (i.e., talismans, ceremonial vessels, banners), Brewster works in the esoteric practice of Wolfmotherhood, offering a kinky, queer reimagining of the infamous Capitoline Wolf myth.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Melanie Elyse Brewster (b. Miami, Florida) is a Greek-American interdisciplinary artist and scholar based in New York City. She earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2024 and her PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Florida in 2011.
Brewster’s solo exhibitions include: Field Projects (New York, NY), Brazosport College Art Gallery (Lake Jackson, TX), and a forthcoming presentation at Wave Hill Public Garden & Cultural Center (Bronx, NY) in October 2026. Her selected group shows include: Wönzimer Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), The CAMP Gallery (Miami, FL), The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY), Pen + Brush (New York, NY), La Mama Galleria (New York, NY), Gallery 263 (Cambridge, MA), Arts Warehouse (Delray Beach, FL), 100,000,000 (Kansas City, MO), Clara M. Lovett Art Museum (Flagstaff, AZ), and Koehnline Museum of Art (Chicago, IL).
She has been an artist-in-residence at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Vermont Studio Center, ChaNorth, and Guttenberg Arts.
Focusing on marginality and queer futurities, she has been a professor in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Columbia University since 2011. Brewster has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and a book, Atheists in America, on belief and stress in the United States. She previously served as an editor for the Journal of Counseling Psychology as well as Secularism and Nonreligion. Her research has been featured in media outlets such as CNN, NPR, Vice News, and the CBC. Notably, LGBTQ workplace research she conducted with colleagues was used in APA’s amicus brief for the 2020 SCOTUS case on Title VII discrimination protection.
She has received awards from the American Psychological Association (APA) such as: the Fritz & Linn Kuder Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Counseling Psychology, Early Career Award for Contributions to LGBT Counseling Psychology, Women of Color Psychologies Award, Barbara Kirk Award, Psychotherapy with Women Award, among many others. She was selected to be a Public Voices Fellow in 2017 by Columbia University.