Celina Melo

Celina Melo
Around the Bend, Acrylic & Mixed Media, 36x48
Georgian Skies, Acrylic & Mixed Media, 36x48
Rocks Before the Storm, Acrylic & Mixed Media, 30x40
Icescape V, Acrylic & Mixed Media, 15x30
Sky, Water and Rocks Aglow, Acrylic & Mixed Media 36x48

 Celina Melo, OCT, BFA, B.Ed 

Celina Melo is an abstract landscape painter, who works in acrylic and mixed media. Melo graduated cum laude from York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Specialist in Visual Arts and a Bachelor of Education in 2006. She is a teacher for Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, where she teaches high school visual arts, photography and media arts. Melo is a member of Visual Arts Mississauga, Mississauga Arts Council and Ontario College of Teachers. She has exhibited her work across the GTA and Midland, Ontario.

Painting and photography have been her favourite media; these two interests have come together in her personal painting portfolio. Melo’s work references imagery from her photography combined with texture, traditional painting and poured paint techniques.
Textural depth is important in her pieces, as well as the push and pull depth achieved by layering the sheen of pouring medium and the matte quality of acrylic paint. Surfaces are built up to create texture using modeling paste. Often mixed media is incorporated, such as cheesecloth and sand. Paintings range in size from 6 x 6 inches up to 36 x 84 inches. Imagery is painted. Paint is poured. The result is an organic and fluid interpretation of the landscape, which meanders between abstraction and realism. 
Georgian Bay often acts as muse. Her subject matter involves water, as she is drawn to its reflective and fluid qualities and its ability to change colour. The inherent movement and reflections in water is represented through Melo's process of painting, pouring and pushing her acrylic paints to mimic and create the impression of movement and colour – to try to recapture the sensation of being in the moment. 
She currently lives in Mississauga with her husband, two daughters and her yellow Labrador Retriever.