Artist Melanie Fleet works on a piece for her upcoming exhibition. Photo / Paul Brooks
Artist Melanie Fleet works on a piece for her upcoming exhibition. Photo / Paul Brooks
Melanie Fleet's first solo art exhibition will be an experience the viewer will long remember. Her assemblage art is a combination of things, taking common objects, transforming them or presenting them in a new light, giving them uses well outside the common. Who would have thought old-fashioned pen nibs could be adoll's headdress? "They lend themselves to being a crown," says Melanie. Her imagination and craft skill has led to mundane — but often old — pieces forming backgrounds or vehicles to support her art. A photograph of a nearby fence provides a marbled-effect backing, for example.
Dolls and their component parts play a big role in her work, ranging from the fascinating to borderline creepy, but the eye of the beholder will find its own perspective. Strong colours prevail, adding depth to the three-dimensional work, but Melanie also uses photography of her own work to create new work in two dimensions. They have a kind of pop-art feel.
"People find dolls creepy for some reason, so I've used dolls to make something pretty.
"Dolls particularly are very polarising objects. One can have a very emotional attachment to 'just a piece of plastic' or the flipside be scared or worried by it," she says on her Facebook page.
Of course, it's up to the viewer to put their own adjectives to her work, which is part of the purpose: to reflect or question people's emotions regarding inanimate objects. The exhibition is titled Pieces Of ... so individual works complete the phrase, like "Exhuberance", or "Purity", perhaps "Confusion".
Holding an exhibition was Melanie's incentive to "stop mucking around and do something". It all happens at a time when she is in the middle of selling a property and moving from Foxton to Whanganui.
Melanie also creates jewellery using Barbie Doll parts ... "Pieces of ... " Barbie Dolls. It blends well with her other work. Even the earring stand is a work of art.
The exhibition features an array of work, with sculptures, photographs and "worked" photographs with extra paint as well as her jewellery. Photography, sculpture, woodwork, printmaking, furniture making and painting form Melanie's art practice. This exhibition showcases all these genres.
The Details What: Pieces of ... , a solo exhibition by Melanie Fleet When: Exhibition opens Friday, May 20, 6pm-7pm, and runs to Saturday, June 4. Where: Whanganui Community Arts Centre, 19 Taupo Quay.
