Melanie Gray
Melanie Gray is a Sydney based Contemporary Artist, who specialises in Portraiture, Figurative Painting, Life Drawing and Landscapes
Gray uses the painting process to explore complex issues of relationships and emotions.
“There’s always more to things, a hidden meaning.” (D. Tartt, ‘The Goldfinch’, 2013) is a quote Gray ruminates on to examine the degree to which one reveals oneself both metaphorically and literally. The result is a narrative that represents a variety of relationships both observed and her own. Gray combines the painting technique of layering to investigate the psychological impact of colour and focuses on shadow as means to extend the metaphor of disconnect and deception.
Gray was born in Sydney in 1963 and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Art, San Francisco, on scholarship in the 1980s. She has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales. This is the first time she has entered the Archibald Prize.
Disquietude, 2020. Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 cm
