Melody Woodnutt

Visual Artist
Brisbane

Mentor: Angela Gardner

Melody Woodnutt is a self-taught visual artist and a newcomer to Brisbane and its emerging art scene, taking up a studio with MetroArts and an opportunity with the Youth Arts Queensland YAMP program.

Working primarily through oils and influenced by surrealism, conceptual art and also abstract expressionism; movements with emotional intensity, thought abstraction, somewhat 'planned' chaotic spontaneity and a subconscious projection of ideas. Presently the work explores that of sexuality, its energies and the female form.

Melody incorporates symbolism and a more psychological theory upon which the works are based, often exploring themes in great depth through research and a method artist approach. This preparation is as essential as the paint itself and allows the subconscious to work freely through the mind and body and as one with the application. The work is often curious about, and concerned with, society, humanity, the observation of self and psyche and testing the boundaries of which perspective is held.

Undertaking an extended period of time travelling and living around the globe to experience and learn from artists, the world and its people on the run; consequential studies range from the classroms of Peggy Guggenheim's Residence-Venice, artist collectives in Thailand, New Zealand and Ireland, the major European and American Galleries, classes in Virginia-USA, Tennessee-USA, and Dublin-Ireland, to those in Australia at TAFE and La Trobe College of Art-Melbourne. Melody has held exhibitions with fellow artists in Melbourne, Dublin and Brisbane.