Robert Mellor

Robert Mellor, Abode, 2005, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 48 X 72 inches

A little something about this artist:

The paintings of Robert Mellor never cease to stop viewers with their immediacy, colors, compositions, and technique. They then draw us in to wonderlands of the organic, the ornate, the abstract and the decorative. Simply stated, there is no body of work quite like Mellor's acrylic paintings. We see many different 'parts' in his paintings, and then absorb the entire lyrical delight of his seemingly impossible compositions.

As Mellor states: "In my paintings, events and passages exist which at first glance induce the viewer to establish the relationship with different parts of the work, then to absorb the entirety of the work."

Mellor plays with the notions of the recognizable and the unfamiliar and the tension this dichotomy creates. Applying paint in overlapping layers, Mellor adds many dimensions - literally and metaphorically - to his work. He combines colors and shapes that simply do not "belong together" with suprisingly harmonious results.

According to Mellor, "A painting will meander between recognizable and unfamiliar. Each application of color shakes the foundations of previously applied paint. Colors are free from their designations to interact and often compete for attention. The same applies to the bold graphic quality of articulated patterns."

In sum, Mellor has created his own, unique form of beauty, where he willingly pairs hard edge lines, disparate forms, patterns and colors, changes the quality of paint from lustrous to flat, and shifts spatial hierarchies. For Mellor, beauty reigns in the chaotic and his paintings resonate with a melodious cacophony.