Artist Statement

Melissa Bonin with 3 panels from 48-foot landscape mural
New Iberia, Louisiana, 2001

There is a certain time of day, just before the darkness, when the human eye has difficulty seeing and imagination steps in to fill the gaps. At this time, color is at its richest and trees look like dark spirits waiting and walking in the distant cane fields.

My work is a personal, poetic, and symbolic interpretation of my native landscape. It possessses a unique language of color, light, and spatial relationships.

Painting: Sherbet Bayou II

About Painting Technique

In an effort to capture the essence of the Bayou Teche flowing through my birthplace and home, I use oil and various media in a wet-on-wet application. My paintings are done à la prima, however sometimes I paint them fifty times, wiping them completely off between paintings in order to arrive at the desired immediate freshness. The painting is done with a sense of urgency. The effect resonates a shimmering calm surface above, while holding a powerful evocative energy below.

Triptych. Private collection of Dr. Donna Tesi
Franklin, Louisiana, 2002

About My Work

I want my artwork to exist in its own place in time. Therefore, my themes have a timeless quality. My images and palette are a delicate balance between my love of old world master painters' work and my joy and excitement about modern painting. I like the tension these two elements create together on the same canvas. In my surfaces and applications of paint I strive for the same feeling I get when I approach ancient chinese pottery with their beautiful colors, similicity, and glazes. I love the simple beauty and power of the combination of the elements of water in the glazes, earth in the support, and fire as the transformer.