Melissa Boughey
Melissa Boughey describes her work as “an annotation of landscape, a shorthand writing, a synthesis of experience.” Time spent immersed in the landscape, drawing en plein air, is intrinsic to her experience and provides the framework for the development of paintings in her bush studio, where she has lived and worked for the past 23 years, located on the Kent River near Denmark, WA.
Melissa’s work often sits between the two worlds of desert and bush, or coastal and inland, usually inspired by a recent camping trip. Painting for her is a sensory experience, allowing the work to develop of its own accord is paramount, through mark-making, colour play, and integrity to materials and surface.
Melissa completed a Bachelor of Arts (ART) Curtin University WA (1994), and then moved south where she and her partner have a family of three sons and run a small farm vineyard and cellar door. The last few years have seen Melissa more fully invest in her arts practice and she has been finalist in a number of national shows including The Paul Guest Prize for Drawing (2016), Kogarah Art Prize (2015), Albany Art Prize (2015), Lloyd Rees Landscape Prize (2015) & Fleurieu Art Prize (2011) amongst others.
Photo credit: Bo Wong
