Mark-making, drips, layers, scumbling, contradicting, and abstracting, artist Melanie Crawford wrestles with the materiality of abstract painting, reinvigorating the medium with new references and perspectives. In her Adelaide studio, she works improvisationally to build, scrape and layer the paint applied to the canvas in an ongoing process of editing and revision. Her art is about connection and her finished artworks are the surface remains of many conversations, moments, sounds, movements and expressions which therefore become a kind of universal language. She states, “It’s a non-linguistic activity that in many ways cannot be contained by language alone.”
Graduating from UNSW College of Fine Arts in Sydney in 2013, Crawford seeks to apply the experimental and improvisational practices of the Abstract expressionist painters of the modern era to the realm of contemporary painting. Her broad span of artistic references extends to Lee Krasner, Yvonne Audette, Jahnne Pasco White and Anna Schuleit-Haber.
AWARDS
Winner - 1st Prize - ‘Essence of Place” - Abstract Prize - RSASA 2023
Finalist - Kennedy Art Prize - 2023
Publication - SA Life Luxury Edition Magazine - September 2023
Winner - Minister’s Art Education Award - South Australia 2022
Publication - International - Art Folio 2022 - Douglas King
TV Show Feature - Australia’s Best Home 2022, Hosted by Megan Gale
Finalist - Zart National Teacher Artist Prize - 2022
Winner - Zart National Teacher Artist Prize - 2021