Karen Melvin
Karen Melvin uses photography, drawing, text and paint to construct images that examine our relationship to the natural world. The work challenges our perception of the idyll of nature, bringing up issues around sustenance, consumer culture and a disposable earth, the hidden violence of a polluted world.
“I begin my visual practice walking in the landscape and tending my garden: daily with a sense of time trailing. I learn from an intimate exploration, watching, handling. This forms part of my relationship with the environment, how we use and consume it. I construct imagery that builds a narrative of associations: trees, birds, flowers, people, stones, rock face. Gestural marks collide with collected photographic fragments, the body colliding with nature. I like working collaboratively, to be challenged by the presence of another’s idea, opening new vistas of perception. This has led to working with installation, performance, paint and photography mixed in different combinations.” K Melvin
Collaborations with Claudia Sacher include Large and Small, Slaley, Northumberland 2022; Breath of My Garden, Gibside NT, Gateshead, 2021-22; Picnic at Stone Circle, Ladycross Nature Reserve, Northumberland, 2019; No.3, installation, High Green Arts, VARC and Great Northumberland, Tarset, 2018. Recent solo exhibitions include Offcuts- Homing In, Small House Gallery, London, 2022; Torn Photos, Healey Church, Northumberland 2021, Flying Falling, the Customs House, Tyne & Wear, 2017.
Breath of my Garden looks at the garden as an area of control, balance and meditation. It consists of large hanging canvases with photography and painting on one side by Melvin and drawing on the other by Sacher, as a resonse, the outer calling up the inner.
Flying Falling reflects on the loss of species and habitats. Dead birds, little scraps of nature and found debris are merged with drawings from sketchbooks and found images. Finding and tracking the small insignificant deaths of birds in a garden, domestic “memento mori”, mirrors the complexity of environmental change and catastrophe. Space in a picture tells a story in different ways. Melvin reimagines this space, literally deconstructing, separating onto white paper, isolating details from their context. She uses space with no single perspective point, to allow free flowing associations between multiple view points and media genres. The long scroll format of Flying Falling gathers memories from a continuum, images of flight, journey and death.
Career path:
I studied Fine Art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (BA Hons), lectured in photography at Newcastle Polytechnic and most recently at Cleveland College of Art and Design for fifteen years, was three times adviser on photography for Northern Arts and was a founding member and arts adviser for the environmental project, Ladycross Nature and Art. I was photographer in residence for the Middlesbrough 2000 Millennium Festival working with community groups, using environmental and dramatised portraiture. I received a Northern Arts award and an A4E Lottery grant in 1996 for the project Fairy Tale, Myth and the Landscape, resulting in exhibition and performance, The Seal Woman, and a Visual Arts 1996 grant for The Four Winds Stone Circle, a collaborative environmental art project. With "Frocks in the Cupboard; Life is a Series of...." I created a series of portraits and stories of women in clothing with a transformative significance.
I have returned to woodland, the garden, and the northern (and contrastingly the deep southern US) landscape as subject and background in various guises from my early documentation of hill farmers to the representation of ancient woodland and how it relates to the psychology and setting of fairy tales and mythology. "Rapunzel" looked at ecological struggles and conflicts of protection and freedom. I photographed four friends in ancient woodlands along with woodland floral carpets and trees, installing the images in a flow across the wall in a non-linear way. "Constellation " represents the night sky in a still life setting resonating with mythology and domestic narrative. In "Down South" and "Sisters" I look at my family roots in the USA and my relationship with my sister and how the sub tropical environment affects my understanding. "Paper Dolls" incorporates portraiture and self-portraiture in a still life setting. Paper dolls were part of my childhood play of fantasy and social exploration. The use of scale and juxtaposition of figures and objects creates an imaginary space, a collision of different realms, throwing light on dynamics between parent and child, male and female, youth and age.
Solo exhibitions
2022 - Offcuts- Homing In, Small House Gallery, London
2021 - Torn Photos, Healey Church, Northumberland
2017 - Flying Falling, the Customs House, Tyne & Wear
Collaborations with Claudia Sacher include Large and Small, Slaley, Northumberland 2022; Breath of My Garden, Gibside NT, Gateshead, 2021-22; Picnic at Stone Circle, Ladycross Nature Reserve, Northumberland, 2019; No.3, installation, High Green Arts, VARC and Great Northumberland, Tarset, 2018.
2010 - Beyond Paper Dolls, Art @ 830, Key West, Florida, USA
2006 - Karen Melvin's Paper Dolls, Queens Hall Art Centre, Hexham
2006 - Pavilion, Round Foundry Media Centre, Leeds 2005 - Paper Dolls, Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington
2004 - Paper Dolls In Progress & Constellation, MAC Centre, Birmingham
2002 - Constellation, Gateshead Library Gallery, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
2001 - All Heaven and Earth, Tom Blau Gallery, London
2000 - Pride - Middlesbrough 2
000, Millennium Dome, London and tour
1997 - Seal woman, exhibition and performance, Queen's Hall Art Centre Gallery, Hexham, Northumberland and Real Art tour
1986 - Devils water, Queens Hall Gallery, Northumberland
1982 - Blanchland Moor to Hexhamshire, Wansbeck Square Gallery, Ashington, Northumberland and tour
1981 - Two worlds, Moot Hall, Hexham, Northumberland
1980 - Idonesia, DLI Arts Centre, Durham City
1976 - Unity in Diversity, Taman Ismael National Art Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia
1973 - American wooden buildings and the rural scene, Bede Gallery, Tyne and Wear and tour
Group exhibitions:
2021 - Restriction, Clayhill Arts, Bridgewater, Somerset
2021 - What to Do with a Love Story, Let Us Eat Cake, Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough
2020 - Northern Lights, The Wall North Contemporary, Hexham
2017 - Karen Melvin and Jane Vetch at Kilgallon Gallery in the Hills, Northumberland
2017 - Thoughtful Planet, Thought Foundation, Birtley, Co Durham
2014, Open Up North, Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal (third prize winner)
2014- Art Squared, Forge, Allendale, Northunberland
2013- Photographs 15, Shepherds Dene, Northumberland
2012 - 28: A Celebration of the Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington Arts Centre, Darlington, Co Durham
2012 - Hospitality and Harmony, Shepherds Dene, Riding Mill, Northumberland
2012 - Points of Conjecture, Duchess Gallery, Kielder, Northumberland
2010 - Dover Prize, Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington
2009 - Water, Queens Hall Arts Centre, Hexham 2008 - Bridging, Kirkharle Courtyard, Northumberland, UK & Brisbane, Australia
2008 - Green Thoughts in a Green Shade, The Garden Station, Langley, Northumberland
2008 - Shakespeare and the Natural World, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick
2007 - Edge 2, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick
2007 - Shakespeare, the Artists' View, Gossipgate Gallery, Alston, Northumberland
2007 - Sheds, The Garden Station, Langley, Northumberland 2005 - ...some food for thought, Queen's Hall Gallery, Hexham
005 - Borealis 1, Flowers East, London
2005 - New new, New old, Kent Gallery, Key West, Florida, USA
2005 - The Unlimited Dream Company or An Atlas of Imaginary Places, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle upon Tyne
2005 - Thinking the Unthinkable or Against Nature, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear
2003 - Dialogue with the Environment, Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk
2002 - Ancient Woodland and Venerable Trees, Queens Hall Art Centre, Hexham, Northumberland
2002 - International Women's Festival: We Create, University of Teeside, Middlesbrough
2002 - On the Edge, The Moot Hall, Hexham, Northumberland
2000 - 2000 Print Auction, Houston Centre for Photography, Texas, USA
2000 - Signpost, Queens Hall Art Centre, Hexham, Northumberland
2000 - The Egg and I, Helia Gallery, Key West, Florida, USA
1999 - Frozen Moments, The Discovery Centre, Bishop Auckland, Durham
1998 - The artist revealed, Prudhoe Arts Centre, Northumberland
1998 - The Royal Photographic Society International Print Exhibition, Bath and tour
1997 - Celebration, Hexham Abbey, Northumberland
1996 - Claremorris Open, Ireland
1996 - Middlesbrough Open, Cleveland Gallery, Teeside
1996 - New Work, Collingwood College, Durham
1996 - The Dawn of the Millennium, Tynedale Open, Hexham, Northumberland
1995 - Frocks in the Cupboard, Life is a series of ..., The Buddle, Tyne and Wear and tour
1994 - Resourceful Women, Flaxman Gallery, Staffordshire
1994 - The Nine Muses, Hexham Abbey, Northumberland
1994 - Who We Are, Women '94, Zone Gallery, Newcastle and Tour
1993 - Binding Books, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
1993 - Leaving These Things, Stamfordham Gallery, Northumberland
1990 - Laing Exhibition, University of Northumbria Gallery
1990 - The Garden, Photography and Maze, Newcastle Arts Centre Gallery and Tour
Competitions, prizes and awards:
2014- Third Prize winner in Open Up North, Brewey Arts Centre, Kendal
2005 - The Great North Art Affair, Angela Flowers East, London
2004 - Exhibition Production Award for Paper Dolls, Arts Council England , North East, Newcastle upon Tyne
2002 - Mentoring Scheme Award, Arts Council England, North East, Newcastle upon Tyne
