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, "This painting arrived from the experience of picking hydrangeas, swimming in the ocean and meeting friends for morning tea to celebrate a birthday. I felt full of inspiration and reverie and considered my connection to hydrangeas.

"Hydrangeas feel like they are part of my lineage - my Nana’s flowers. My papa grew tomatoes in his backyard and my nana grew hydrangeas out the front. She was a gentle soul. I would ride my bike to visit them in the suburbs. It sits heavy that that not every child has access to a safe environment or a garden to explore.

"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."