Fine Art Inspired By The Islamic World
Let your eyes travel through the colours and symbols of the artist Melanie Francis.
Highly stylised and ancient, the jewel-like miniature details - richly embellished symbols of an age-old traditional art.
A blended fusion of contemporary influences, the work evolved from a background study in ancient elements and traditional designs, crafted with meticulous brushstrokes and using traditional techniques - the art of Melanie Francis.
An expanded exploration of ancient and traditional art, inspired by designs of paradisiacal gardens, their symbolic representation and relevance, and nature’s place in the present.
An art to contemplate in many lights, revealing and endlessly discovering something new.
The contemplative world through the ancient arts of the Islamic world.
MEET MELANIE
As a visual artist and gemologist, my includes aspects of story-telling, and in translating of historic ideas, the materials of these living arts.
Painting is a living practice. In a lifetime of travel, art is a series of cross-cultural references, exchanges between an intimate vision of the world, a contemplation, meditation and the mythology of dreams.
A childhood in India, and years spent living in Iran, Morocco and the Caribbean. A personal history, and a lifetime exploring the rich and vibrant imagery of Indo-Persian art provides a visual vocabulary to accompany a narrative tradition.
In the many historical paradise gardens from Kashmir through India, Iran and also including the Erfound desert oasis, I have been inspired to isolate key elements from nature, garden designs and bodies of water, infusing them with contrasting
natural elements, resulting in a juxtaposition of contained spaces and natural energies.
I’ve had the luck to witness many never-ending oft-reinterpreted stories, myths and magic across the globe.
View the magic and meaning of what’s gone before you.
Extracts from the earth are woven into every painting, creating with every stroke of the brush a process deeply connected to our world.
Let in the details of the process, there is a mystery to cultural histories, myths, in nature, in the night sky. Subtle references, inspirations, and the dreamtime quality blurs past and present.
A deeper, closer more personal contemplation, exploring a richly vibrant and symbolic world through this classical art.
A blurring of the lines between representation and abstraction, between East and West. Exploring the vocabulary of Islamic art, the relationship to space and elements in nature, exploring a widened scale in a hybrid of imagery, opening a vision to internal and dream-like spaces, variations of a Paradisiacal setting.
Connect to a more universal truth through art.
Peter Carpenter - Bermuda
