Beyond Thoughts - Melissa Smith
Somewhere in between the silence, the quietening of the mind, the slowing of the breath and the calming of conscious thought something starts to happen to the way we experience the world - and never more so than when standing in solitude surrounded by nature.
Space and time become elastic and details become sharply focussed...elemental. The natural environment becomes a place where energy, light and matter inhabit the mind’s eye in as much a tactile way as the physical. Sensed intensely, it gives rise to the sublime.
It is this “in between” dimension that inspires printmaker, Melissa Smith. Her images are from wild places - fauna and flora, geology and topography, the celestial and terrestrial. Night skies and cloudscapes, currents of air and water … energy lines ... from the macro to the micro, the visible to invisible.
With the intensity of observation matched by the technical virtuosity and precision of her printmaking, Smith, in my view, is one of Australia's finest printmakers. Her work draws you into itself and beguiles the eye; from the swooping invisible swallow lines to the hidden insect scribblings under the bark of a gumtree, to the topographical profile of this ancient land her images emanate an innate energy and power.
“Beyond Thoughts” brings together works born in this space where the sublime is given form through nature and shows Smith’s work at its very best. ⠀⠀
Beyond Thoughts - Melissa Smith, 1 to 25 May 2020 at Handmark Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania.
Website: Melissa Smith
Gallery: Handmark Gallery
© Belinda Cotton, 2020
Photo credit: Melanie Kate Photography⠀⠀⠀