Melissa Boughey

Melissa Boughey works from a converted farm-shed studio overlooking rehabilitated wetlands, drawing inspiration from the daily rhythms of a seasonal rural life. Observation, gathered through plein air excursions, anchors her practice of emotive drawing and gestural abstract oil painting. Gouache sketches, made early morning and dusk, capture her impressions in the moment; a visceral, absorbed response to place — the landscape buzzing, heat reflecting off rock, the pull of a distant treeline.

Says Boughey of this work, "In breakaway country, the hard gravel cap of the earth is broken away to reveal the under layers; ochres, clay, dusky pinks, an underground ancient river system revealed, watched over by powerful and majestic River Gums.

"The sketches, pared back and instinctual, later become the emotional marker and physical reminder of the feeling of place. They inform the paintings in the beginning, the very first tentative marks - a mapping of place. A little further on in the process I usually abandon pre-conceived ideas and instead respond to the push and pull of paint on surface. I’m in the flow and this energy must be harnessed directly."