Helen Melia is a British abstract painter working in mixed media, with a practice rooted in landscape, memory, and bold experimentation with materials.
Her work is informed by a lifelong engagement with visual language and a background in publishing, which continues to shape her editorial approach to composition, structure and restraint.
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Working primarily with acrylics, collage and textured media, Helen uses disruption as a generative force within the picture plane. Gels, sand, plaster, gold leaf and hand-printed papers are layered and reworked, allowing surface and depth to evolve together. While her work can be highly abstract, it remains anchored in lived experience of place - from dramatic coastal environments to the quieter rhythms of her local woodland landscape.
Helen's practice is characterised by an intuitive process balanced by rigorous editing. Colour, form and material are used not to describe landscape directly but to distill its emotional and spatial qualities. The resulting works invite slow looking, ambiguity, and imaginative response. She works from her studio on the Sussex/Surrey border, surrounded by ancient woodland in which she walks every day, collecting inspiration and tuning in to the seasons. She regularly opens her studio as a member of Surrey Artists Open Studios.
Helen's work has been selected for a number of open exhibitions, including the Sussex Contemporary (Brighton, Newhaven) and the Royal Society of Marine Artists, Mall Galleries, London.
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