Melissa Guy

The materiality of paint intrigues me as both subject and language. Through abstraction, and at times the edge of representation, I explore the emotional terrain of grief and the subtle ruptures of everyday loss. My work in the death and dying space has revealed how grief quietly shapes our lives, often unspoken and unresolved.

After years focusing on psychology studies, this return to painting reconnects me with gesture, intuition, and the body. Growing up among generations of landscape artists beneath South Island skies, landscape has become a subconscious echo in my work—its vastness a metaphor for interior space. 14 years of classical ballet training continue to shape my process, where movement precedes mark-making, and the whole body participates in what the hand translates to the canvas.