Melissa Egan

Born: Sydney, 1959

Education:

       World College of South East Asia, Singapore

       Bachelor of Arts Degree, Australian National University

       Diploma of Education, Canberra College of Advanced Education

       Canberra School of Art

 Exhibitions:

 1998        Corso de Fiori, QLD

 1998      Libby Edwards, South Yarra Galleries, VIC

 1999      Libby Edwards, South Yarra Galleries, VIC

 2000      Libby Edwards Gallery, NSW

 2001      Libby Edwards, South Yarra Galleries, VIC; Libby Edwards Gallery, NSW

 2002      Art Galleries Schubert, Gold Coast, QLD

 2003      Wagner Art Gallery, NSW; Art Galleries Schubert, Gold Coast, QLD

 2004      Wagner Art Gallery, NSW

 Represented:

      Private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas.

 Summary:

 Creating paintings is part of Melissa Egan’s everyday life and many of her subjects are drawn form childhood memories, marriage and motherhood.  Her family, friends and the day to day tasks she performs provide a plateau on which she builds her works.  Melissa views herself more as a creator than as an artist. 

 Melissa began painting as a child and for her, becoming a successful artist is the realisation of a life-long passion.  Balance and harmony prevail in Melissa’s work.  “If I can achieve an overall balance in my paintings then other components have usually been achieved in a spontaneous and unconscious manner.”

 Melissa’s lyrical, figurative works are set in the Australian landscape, which is the typical backdrop for her whimsical and naive genre.  She uses the landscape as a “stage” for her “actors”.  As she states: “while figures predominate in the majority of the work it is their interconnectedness with their environment that lends plausibility to their existence.  To me, the landscape, the figures and animals interrelate with one another to be of equal importance.”

The actors are vital to the composition of each individual work providing a visual stimulus for the viewer.  They are not merely a decorative tool.  They are symbolic.  The birds for example, work as Australian icons and provide movement and perspective.  The figures and animals as well as the birds interact with one another and emulate events or behaviour that may be pertinent to the viewer.

 Melissa emphasises that the actors in her picture be appreciated just for what they are.  It is very much up to the viewer to place upon her paintings their personal interpretation.  A barren landscape devoid of foliage may be interpreted as man’s ongoing destruction of his environment, or appreciated just for its harsh and barren beauty.

 Irrespective of whatever interpretation we see in Melissa’s work, it would be impossible not to recognise the unique, lyrical, beauty that exists in her talented brush stroke.