Melisa King
LandE scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW feeling with it. Then I prepare a main background color that I relate for that image and the feeling of it. But I try to keep the feeling isolated by interruption of thoughts. I can define it as a“ pure feeling” or purely just contemplation to that feeling. It is the essence. Then I start to draw the subject on the canvas. I use hundreds of lines on top of each other till I get to the right lines. It is like finding the quintessence of the painting.
Almost always, I prefer a large canvas; I believe it is the result of my excitement of transferring the image. Transferring an image gives an option of enlarging it. I can add another dimension to that visual by giving it a larger space so I can make it more obvious to represent. This is my celebration, and I would like other people to see it as well.
The whole process of my painting is like crystallizing a moment or a feeling, in other words, crystallizing an essence.
For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected The Sun is God series, an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. Your paintings communicate a successful attempt to transform tension to harmony and what has at once captured our attention it ' s their dynamic and autonomous aesthetics: are your works painted gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas?
Eventhough most of the time I first take the photos of the subjects of my works, I paint these instinctively rather than methodically. I am very expressive while bringing out the painting. After an expressive introduction, I start to calm down and continue painting in more meditative manner.
While your works are marked out with an abstract feature, the themes of nature urban environment in general are particularly recurrent in your imagery. How does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?
I am very much interested in natural forms and I sometimes have the instinct of infusing them into each other which may end up as a surreal atmosphere. By this, I try to reinforce the beauty altogether with distinct colors and my main elements such as flowers, sky, land, the sea etc.
Abstraction may start where I play with colors. Sometimes I get so involved in colors and forms that I may loose connection with the real representation of the subjects. Sometimes I play with the roles of the subjects and give them different features. For example in Tomorrow Sun will Rise Again, Sun is represented by a flower. I like to create homogenous landscapes with earthy forms and flowers. I get excited by many natural forms at the same time so I end up using them in the same composition by integrating them into each other. In that process some parts may lead to abstraction.
As you have remarked once, you symbolize the sun as the source of creation and you interpret everything it’ s light touches as divine: your inquiry into the relationship between subject and landscape accomplishes the difficult
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