Celina Melo

Joseph Sampson
Celina Melo
"Wintertide" 18x36 Acrylic & Mixed Media On Canvas
"Sky, Water & Rocks Aglow" 36x48 Mixed Media On Canvas
"Icescape IX" 36x36 Mixed Media On Canvas
"Icescape XI" 36x36 Mixed Media On Canvas
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"Icescape XIV" 24x24 Mixed Media On Canvas
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"Surf At Sunset" 40x30 Mixed Media On Canvas

CELINA MELO, OCT, BFA, B.ED

Celina Melo is a 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, media arts and religion. 
 
Melo began exhibiting her work as a professional artist in 2018. Her art continues to be exhibited in juried shows across the GTA and Midland, Ontario. She has partnered with Georgian Bay Land Trust, to whom she donates 5% of all sales.
 
She is Coordinator of the Lakeshore Art Trail, juried member and Online Juried Exhibitions Coordinator of Colour and Form Society, and member of Mississauga Arts Council, Visual Arts Mississauga, and Ontario College of Teachers.  She currently shares her time between her home in Mississauga and her cottage in Tiny Township on the shores of Georgian Bay with her husband, two daughters and her yellow Labrador Retriever.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I’ve always been drawn to the water. It’s transformative power and simultaneous calming energy have captured my soul. Georgian Bay has become my muse, as I find myself compelled to convey and celebrate its intensity and rhythm with reverence for its importance and protection. As such, I have partnered with Georgian Bay Land Trust, to whom I donate 5% of all sales.
 
My paintings explore the possibilities of representing the reflective, dynamic qualities of water, snow and sky through mixed media. Moving across the heavily textured canvas, the lustre of the pouring medium mimics the sparkle and dynamism of water. Bold textures balance and contrast with the delicate sheen, just as nature and life grace us with tranquility and engulf us simultaneously. Gestural lines and reflective pools of pouring medium lie over aspects of painted imagery to create a landscape that meanders between abstraction and realism.
 
Through my paintings, I invite the viewer to my therapeutic, yet overwhelming experience of standing at the water’s edge with reverence, respect and responsibility.