Melanie Goemans
29 Aug – 22 September 2018

Melanie Goemans
Around the Cathedral, Samovar
oil, acrylic & gesso on canvas
44 x 44cm £950

Melanie Goemans
All the Flowers that You Planted III
oil & gesso on canvas
64 x 64cm

Melanie Goemans
All the Flowers that You Planted II
oil, acrylic & gesso on canvas
54 x 54cm £1100

Melanie Goemans
Around the Cathedral IV (Bishop’s Wall)
oil, acrylic & gesso on canvas
44 x 44cm £825

Melanie Goemans
Around the Cathedral VI (Over Bishop’s Wall)
oil, acrylic & gesso on canvas
44 x 44cm £825

Melanie Goemans
Lyrical III
oil and gesso on birch panel
22 x 22cm £450

Melanie Goemans
Lyrical I
oil and gesso on canvas
105 x 105cm £3150

Melanie Goemans
Eleven Swans
oil, silver leaf and gesso on canvas
105 x 105cm £2950

Melanie Goemans
Cuckold’s Row (Homage in Bronze)
oil and gesso on canvas
114 x 98cm

Melanie Goemans
Birdsong
oil, 22ct moon gold leaf and gesso on canvas
105 x 105cm £2950

Melanie Goemans
Queen Anne’s Lace II
oil and acrylic on board
32 x 23cm

Melanie Goemans
Mr Heron
gold leaf on birch panel
90cm diameter £2750

Melanie Goemans
River Great Ouse (Elegy III)
oil and gesso on birch panel
73 x 63cm

Melanie Goemans
Small Sunday Painting
oil, 22 ct moon gold leaf, acrylic on panel
22 x 22cm £450

Melanie Goemans
Summertime
oil and gesso on canvas
105 x 105cm £2850

Melanie Goemans
Wayside IV (Churchyard Wall)
acrylic on canvas
33 x 33cm £625

Melanie Goemans
Fuchsia
oil, 22ct. moon gold leaf and gesso on birch panel
32 x 22cm

Melanie Goemans
Cuckold’s Row (Small Study in Violet)
oil and gesso on birch panel
22 x 32cm £450

Melanie Goemans
Inked II
oil, acrylic and gesso on canvas
43 x 43cm £825

Melanie Goemans
St. Mary the Less
etching with aquatint, edition of 30
16 x 12cm

Melanie Goemans
Rooks in a Spindly Tree
solar plate etching, edition of 30
20 x 15cm

Melanie Goemans
Allium Stems
layered etching, edition of 30
30 x 24cm

Melanie Goemans
Allium
layered etching edition of 30
34 x 34cm
“The work in this exhibition is a response to my environment, the places in and around which I have lived the everyday; the new that has become the familiar, that has resonated the thoughts and experiences lived through here. I like that the paintings are mine only briefly while I work on them in my studio. Their life begins when they fly to another context, to a different viewer who I hope will find their own significances in this work. This is the life of the painting. The birds animate the landscape, the heron like a god, disproportionate and mysteriously significant. The stone – the earth – underlines everything, and the trees have been my enduring fascination for the past fifteen years. I am interested in the overlooked, incidental forms in nature – how painting / printmaking can draw attention to things with no conventional value and mark them as important through the use of traditional materials, such as oil paint, gesso, gold leaf, etching. I like looking at complicated shapes and drawing them with a very fine brush. The act of painting like this feels almost like stitching or weaving, as slowly with each brush mark the work comes together. I used to think art had to be complex to be good, but over time I have realised that keeping things simple or paring them down can make a bigger statement.”
Melanie Goemans grew up in the Lincolnshire fens. She spent time in Italy before studying Florentine Renaissance art at the Courtauld Institute, London and Fine Art at the School of Art, University of Gloucestershire. She went on to teach Art and History of Art and take up Artist in Residence posts in Cheltenham and Devon before settling in London. Melanie relocated to the Cambridgeshire fens with her young family in 2010 and now works from her studio in Ely. Over her career, Melanie has exhibited in group and solo shows across the UK at various venues including the Jerwood Space, Bridgeman Gallery, Rebecca Hossack Gallery and Florence Trust in London. Her work is held in corporate and private collections in the UK and overseas and has recently been selected for the National Open Art Competition; the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition; and the JohnMoores Painting Prize (second round).