HEIRESS is pleased to announce the solo show of photographer Melissa Spitz. Since 2009, artist Melissa Spitz has taken over seven thousand photographs of her mentally ill, substance-abusing mother. The resulting body of work, titled “You Have Nothing to Worry About” documents the tumultuous relationship between the artist and her mother, and examines broader narratives of the relationships between the mentally ill and their loved ones.

In her solo exhibition at HEIRESS, Spitz presents medium-to large-format prints of her iconic images. The works are installed in a chaotic environment, scattered amongst the detritus of familial tragedy: her mother is found in the context of hundreds of pills and pill bottles, a glimpse into the chaos that Spitz and her family have dealt with for many years. Thousands of 4x6 glossy photos are scattered on a table in the center of the space and invites gallery visitors to attempt to make sense of the nostalgia that they hold. In addition to photographs, Spitz has included new sculptural works including ten enameled hammers titled, You Are the Nail, which encourages an examination of the over-reliance of pharmaceutical solutions in the United States. Spitz’s work freezes moments of chaos in time, to be dissected and understood by the artist after the fact. The majority of her most intimate traumatic life experiences are captured through her lens, and finds a second life in the digital sphere on Instagram, to a community of over 50 thousand followers, which blurs the lines between catharsis and entertainment.

Melissa Spitz is a working artist from St. Louis, Missouri, who currently resides in New York City. She received her BFA from the University of Missouri-Columbia and her MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Melissa is the recipient of Magnum's prestigious Inge Morath Award, recognizing a female photographer under the age of 30. She was named Instagram Photographer of 2017 by TIME Magazine. Melissa gave a TedX talk about her work in the fall of 2019, titled “Why I shot my mom.” Her images continue to circulate internationally, most recently in a group exhibition titled ‘CRAZY: Living with Mental Illness’ in Germany.. Brienne Walsh of Forbes Magazine described her work as ‘shocking;’ “I say shocking in a good way. Seeing the work felt like standing up in a crowd to make a speech, expecting to be shouted down, only to have a stranger defend you passionately. It was shocking because of its goodness.”