Nearly Always Looking Up

"These paintings are not literal translations of actual places but rather symbolic representations of landscapes of memory."
– Melinda Marshman

Melinda Marshman's new suite of paintings celebrates the simple pleasures of gazing at the natural environment. A horizontal line in a painting suggests the horizon, and therefore a landscape, while vertical marks on a canvas are read as a figure. However in this work, there is a distinct lack of any horizon but the subject is most definitely the natural landscape. The viewpoint is strange. Melinda looks at the world obliquely and captures the details that others would miss. Her preferred view of the world is somehow cropped, her focus zoomed in on a particular detail such as a brilliant blue sky through overhead branches, or the reflection of foliage in a puddle.

A recent three month residency in Paris at La Cité International des Artes. provided Melinda with an opportunity to explore the French internal waterways, southern coast and the many parklands of Paris. Memories of visual sensations and her emotive responses to new shapes, hues and silhouettes of the landscape are embedded in the work. She says "These paintings are not literal translations of actual places but rather symbolic representations of landscapes of memory." She speaks of the internalising effect that spending time in nature had on her, and of the ability nature has to reconnect us to ourselves. The psychological effect of the natural world is what gives a gravitas and depth to this body of work. There is a quiet strength of presence, the unselfconscious beauty and confidence of nature that inspires hope and brings joy to those who are able to pause to see it. Melinda has a sense of colour and lightness of touch that makes her painting seem effortless and simple, however is the intensity of the relationship she has to her subject as well as to the act of painting, that brings a sense of pleasure and ease.

– Sarah Fitzgerald, Artist and writer