Zanny Mellor, Contain This, 20

Zanny Mellor’s abstract artwork addresses energy, space, light and time through minimalist and gestural forms. Working across painting, collage, alternative photography and installation, she explores a sense of impermanence and transformation by comparing timeframes within the body, mind and landscape.

Her tempered gestural and abstract language varies between bold and high contrast, to more subtle approaches with tonal gradients. The paint is repetitively added and removed, seeming to ebb and flow in slowly built layers or removed at speed. Mark-making is intuitive and deliberate, where fluidity creates a tension between control and chance that energises the painting experience.

 

The colour, vitality and dynamic compositions of this collection is a reaction to the un-colourful life experienced during lockdowns and a craving for the social and cultural interaction. The painting and painted collage series reflects on feelings of containment during the first UK lockdown. The playful gestures in acrylic paint and pencil swing inward or dive off the edges of the paper, barely contained within the composition. The complimentary colour relationships and high contrasts created visual tension and excitement, challenging the monotony of that time and creating energy for the the artist and viewer.

Read more in interview with The Art Five: https://www.theartfive.com/post/the-art-five-issue-10-with-artist-zanny-mellor