Statement

My work originates from imagination and concept, rather than direct observation. I express feelings from my life experience around discovery and knowledge, and often invite the viewer to question what they are truly seeing, encouraging a deeper reflection on perception versus impression. I do this through a sense mystery, stillness or conversely that of movement. I use more realistic rms coupled with abstract ones to create a sense of both reality and the tension of the unfamiliar. Using both paint and printing my own collage papers adds another juxtaposition. I focus on the underlying geometry of the work, aligning myself with some of the 20th Century movements that emphasised form, space, structure and balance, like the Cubists and the Abstract Expressionists.

"Still Scenes" - These intimate scale paintings capture a moment frozen in time. A cinematic stillness, in that charged silent space full of suggestion where something has happened, or is about to. I'm drawn to the moments between moments; the aftermath, the anticipation, the quiet pause where emotion gathers but hasn't yet broken. I think of them as scenes from an invisible narrative - fragments of something larger, unknowable. From my own life experience there is often a theme in these works of absence, deception or betrayal. I'm less interested in what's happening and more in what's felt: the sense of unease, emotional echo, paradox or ambiguity. This work is about the human instinct to fill in the blanks and how stillness can be louder than words.

Pathways and Journeys

Pathways are a recurring motif in my work. Partly because I live on the South West Coastal Path, and partly because ive always been an inquisitive explorer of new places. My strong interests in geography and history surfaces in this work. The changing of the travellers orientation at different locations on a pathway; and the layering of time. More broadly pathways represent purpose, direction, and the passage of time. The path already travelled lies behind, what lies ahead may offer promise, or peril but is unknown.

"Passing Through" - This landscape series deals with journeying and explores the connection between movement and memory—snapshots of landscape seen fleetingly from a train window. The images are often blurred or distorted, capturing not the objective reality, but a fleeting imprint of it. It raises the question: what did we really see, and what did we imagine?

"Ways and Means" - These works investigate how we navigate both serene and hostile landscapes. The path forward is often obscured—disappearing over a rise, around a bend, or into shadow. The full picture is never revealed. These paintings serve as metaphors for uncertainty, fear, courage and the unseen journey beyond the canvas.

"Coastal Pathways" - Here I explore the liminal space between land and sea. The coastal path follows the edge of the infinite—a metaphor for freedom, and yet also for how we are continually coaxed along the linear path beyond the next horizon which leads us to another, and another still: a perpetual, and perhaps futile search beyond living life in the moment, for what lies just beyond in the unseeable timeline that is our own lifespan.

Biography

Mel and her sisters were brought up in South Africa. Returning to the Uk aged 8 she was denied the chance to take art or music as extra work on the 3 r's was prioritised. Eventually, with a family of her own to juggle, she took a BA Foundation Degree in Art and Design at Bournemouth Arts Institute aged 40, achieving a first. Enthused by the mid century French photographers like Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson she took up black and white photography which appealed to her love of strong light and contrast, and travelled widely with her camera capturing reportage scenes of urban and rural life. She trained in forging at West Dean College and took evening classes in welding at the Southampton dockyards to support her metal sculpture work. However painting was to be her real passion and she has drawn her inspiration from art movements of the 20th Century, training at The St Ives School Of Painting and with such masters as Robin Child at The Art Research Centre.

Mel has exhibited at Hilliers Gardens; Open Studios; The Lymington Palette Club; The Chelsea Arts Society; Palais Des Vaches Gallery. Her paintings are held in private collections in the Uk; Sri Lanka; California; New Zealand; Australia; Portugal and Morocco