Melanie Miller

MelanieMiller CV

A soul born of Africa, now domiciled in Australia, together withuse of vibrant colour, varied textures and mixed media juxtapose to present a uniquetalent, that is, Melanie Miller. In your face, powerful, abstract images encapsulateher fresh and unusual Afro – Australasian perspective of her environment.

Melanie’smotivations are influenced by her youth, living on the shores of the IndianOcean watching the African sun casting its long shadows using the ocean as acanvas. Influences and background are a large part ofwhat makes Melanie’s work exceptional. It is the tapestry of Egypt in hermother, Russian in her father and a youth at one with sea and sky in MuizenbergCape Town that is woven into her work.

  Melanie Miller is a South African bornartist now living in Sydney. She studied at the Cape Town Technical Collegeobtaining a diploma in Art.

Aftersome four years of painting on fabric Melanie decided that she wanted to changeto the medium of canvas, where she felt immediately at home.  She found that she was able to expressherself more freely and creating expressionistic, colorful works of art,exploring the niche field of textures and three dimensional imagery, including interweavingof geometrical reflective shadows.

By using brightcolours, she has managed to highlight and explore chosen areas of the canvaskeeping the balance in background mode, resulting in a vibrant abstract journeyinto her past or even present thinking. 

Her broad brush strokes using thickened textures, areinfluenced by her innermost sensuality, allowing her to push the window ofopportunity of textures to its boundaries. Her colours are basically primarybut worked onto the canvas in a unique manner creating vibrant 3-D imagery andfinished in a powerful textured finish.   

In her latest works which she is exhibiting, sheemploys an amazing blend of reds and autumn colours resulting in a vividlygraphic portrayal of the outback. 

Beingan artist, one faces constant challenges of change and understanding, this is evidentas the artist becomes more of an extension of the canvas.

“I paint large pictures because not only is it grandiose, but I want to beintimate and human. To paint small pictures is to place oneself outside ofone’s experience however, large pictures allow the artist to become part ofthat canvas.

Myperspective of capturing a scene changes as my work matures and, I will beviewing my subject scene artistically but with differing inspirations, throughmy various phases of life.”