About the Artist.

Ever since I was a little girl I was always scribbling patterns in colours on the borders of my schoolbooks. When I was in high school my dad brought home boxes and boxes of Faber Castell pencils, so I decided to do my Year 12 Art Major Body of Work as a large scale coloured pencil drawing. Years later I got the pencils out again and began to redraw over this work. It was from this early work that I began to develop my style of coloured pencil drawings. I draw rather instinctively and work the colours until they sing. Each pencil drawing takes many hours of colour build up to complete. I use the drawings to articulate my thoughts and emotions into images rather than words. It is also important for me to sometimes work in black and white because black and white don't lie.

My inspiration comes from many sources, in particular tattoo art imagery, surrealism, magic and illusion. Forms and patterns in nature, plants and animal life and waves provide the basis of my line work. I have a deep fascination with water and use the particular elements of motion, line, time and space to express this.

"The Isle of the Dead" by Arnold Bocklin is my favorite painting and a recurring image that I use in my works. As an emerging contemporary artist I have drawn on influences from others who have preceded me such as Brett Whitely, Salvatore Dali and Georgia O'Keefe. I am an abstract expressionist and am of the belief that art as visual stimulation is meant to transcend common thought and that people should use their own imagination to find things which are hidden in the works.

In 2005 my partner and I moved our family to the Southern Highlands and I began to study art at Tafe. I am currently completing my Diploma of Fine Arts at Campbelltown Tafe.

I have four young children who are little artists within themselves. I work casually as a volunteer art teacher at a local preschool and primary school.

For the past three years I have worked with preschool children teaching them to create artworks for exhibition. I would like to think that I have inspired them to move way and beyond their own imaginations.

Prices for my artworks are available on request.

For any further information please email me on mel.mwheeler@gmail.com