Melanie Stapelberg *ART* Whimsical Paintings

Oil on canvass, and mixed media fine art

  

Melanie Stapelberg is an artist based in Pretoria.

 

Her paintings are influenced by Victoriana, Tudor, Art Nouveau and Gothika. Stories, old photographs and ephemera, daydreams and fairytales and pattern and more patterns.

 

Some of her stylistic references are to art history, including the Renaissance, Baroque, Victorian decorative art, Romanticism, and antique botanical imagery; these influential art movements, combined with her own concepts, elicit painting compositions that are seductive visual feasts of fruit, flora, wildlife, pattern and beauty laced with brooding undertones.

 

Working with oil paint and collage, Melanie creates dreamy worlds of strong mystical girls and bewildering creatures, focusing on the beauty of imagination and its dominance over time.

 

She illustrates various situations for her female protagonists to interact with through symbolic elements in vague settings. These scenes often comment on the operating consequences of idealism and fantasy due to naivety and youth with two opposing forces at work: natural inclination versus cognitive reasoning. These rival dualities are further represented by stylistic differences and the contrasting mediums of found ephemera and painting.

There is deeply personal meaning to be found as the multi-layered struggles depicted in her current body of work reflect her interests and concerns as a growing woman with a penchant for idealism.

 

I am an artist, designer, and seamstress.

Wife to one intrepid man, and mother to three ingenious children.

Full time mom (stepmom to a dog and one mini hamster),

....and a recovering perfectionist.  

I was born an artist, I was drawing and painting before I learned to write my name.  

My deepest desire is to honor God with my life....  

My formal training is in the form of an under-graduate degree in design, and fine art and my informal training from nearly four decades of creating.

I have worked as an artist, illustrator, designer, set painter and art teacher.

I love the smell of paint, the texture of a new canvass and vintage patterns .

I am happiest when I am creating.  

 

  • Paintings in private collections all over the world
  • Private commission work
  • Establish, develop and manage an art school
  • Solo and art-association exhibitions
  • 1st place, best painting technique, Centurion Art Association Art Competition
  • Designer, Architectural design at Interior Design Company
  • Freelance graphic design
  • Commissioned work in decorative and theatrical murals

Profesional:

  • Paintings in private collections all over the world
  • Private commission work
  • Establish, develop and manage an art school
  • Solo and art-association exhibitions
  • 1st place, best painting technique, Centurion Art Association Art Competition
  • Designer, Architectural design at Interior Design Company
  • Freelance graphic design
  • Commissioned work in decorative and theatrical murals