Melissa Stuart

Artist Statement: 

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I love to paint. Painting, image making, allows me to leave the everyday details of life and enter into a state of discovery.  I put paint on canvas and the painting starts to talk to me.  At that point, I am in relationship, dancing with color, shape, line and texture all in the unknown. It becomes a dialogue with what appears, and it is no longer just me creating.

 

I am working with the invisible, a magic show, revealing new relationships, unseen and unconscious.  Uncontrived!  That’s what I love, the uncontrived. I move with the rhythm, paint strokes, the vibrations that happen when different colors and shapes are next to each other.  I’m an explorer and painting is the vehicle that I use to discover uncharted territory not bound by the mind.   

 

I am classically trained to paint Ala Prima from live models, capturing the essence of my subjects, and expressing it spontaneously and intuitively. My connection with the models is essential to the process and I am inspired by being in their presence for hours.  As I paint, I feel every stroke is caressing the miraculous beauty of the body.  I often find myself entranced by the sensuous quality of contours, curves, skin tones, flow of the hair, bone structure, curve of the hips and lips. 

In addition to figure, I paint landscape, still life, abstract, and collage.  I often love painting themes in art such as skeletons and bones, horses, birds, and flowers.  My main medium is oil but I work with all the mediums, watercolor, acrylic, charcoal, etc.   My aliveness comes from living on the edge, expressing the impulse of the moment with paint.  My passion for painting is a meditation and has helped me through hard times in my life.