MELINDA HARPER

Melinda Harper:
Abstract artist

No one quite has the same way of seeing the world like abstract artist Melinda Harper, who transforms familiar configurations into captivating, emotional works.

For over three decades, Harper has been influenced by her own experience of looking and engaging with the world around her, creating vivid geometric works that act as a visual response to the lived experience.

‘Abstract paintings are direct observations of life,’ Harper once described. ‘The act of looking, the obvious, the precise and the precious.’

Picking up visual clues from her almost daily walks, jotting down observations of colour combinations and movement in her notebook, and even finding inspiration in the written word, colour and form are the driving force in her work.

Harper first became interested in abstract painting as a 16-year-old after viewing Hans Hofmann’s Pre-dawn (1960). She later moved to Melbourne in 1983 to study painting at Victoria College where abstract artists Robert Jacks, Lesley Dumbrell and John Nixon were among her teachers. Her early artistic development was in part shaped by her involvement with gallery Studio 5, where Harper first showed her striped paintings in 1991.

Best known for her striking oil paints – which take her several months to complete as she lets each dry stripe by stripe – her practice spans drawings, screenprints, collage, printed textiles, hand-stitched embroideries and sculptural assemblage.

Today, Harper’s unwavering commitment to colour and abstraction has propelled her to the position of one of the leading artists of her generation. The artist’s first major museum exhibition, Colour Sensation: The Works of Melinda Harper at Heide Museum takes place thirty-years after her graduation from art school and presents a kaleidoscopic feast for the eyes.   

Yet despite such an impressive body of work chronicled and collected by Australia’s major state and private galleries, the allure of the art world is not a distraction for the artist who favours simplicity.

So much so that the single-mother of two made the snap decision eighteen-months ago to move away from the chaos of city life in Melbourne to Castlemaine in regional Victoria.

‘I had never been there – I just Googled it, saw it wasn’t far from Melbourne and that there were plenty of primary schools.’

Opting for a slower lifestyle also fits in with the slowness of her artistic practice, with Harper working on several paintings at once, making decisions as slowly as the paint dries.

There’s something unplanned yet balanced in Harper’s work, which is also reflected in her daily life. From the early morning rush to drop the kids to school, to balancing a part-time day job with time in her backyard shed-turned-studio, Harper is a reminder that we can be both vivid and quiet, busy yet patient.

Like her lessons on kindness, patience and slowing down, her life demonstrates it’s the conscious decisions we make that ultimately colour our days. 

Weekends are really the kids time – getting up and driving all over the county to get to football.

There’s no studio time but we might go to a market or an art event like the artists walk we went on a few weeks ago.

We often do some exploring or visit the hot springs, or go to a movie in Bendigo or just have some down time.

Sometimes we might go out for dinner if a friend is staying, but that wouldn’t be a regular thing. When it is warmer we might go for a walk.

We do spend time a lot of time at home – we are all sort of homebodies.

On the decision to move to regional Victoria…

It’s a lot easier living in the country as a single parent. Because you are doing everything, I found there was just less time in the city. I was spending so much time stuck in the car in traffic and working so much just for the money.

You end up not having enough time to even read a book and I felt it was becoming a ridiculous way to live.

Also the kids have to be in after care all the time because you are working and you know how much they hate after care, so if they ask for something you feel guilty so you buy it, and you end up spending so much and giving them a false sense of money. 

I decided I needed a real shift and here the landscape is so great, you are so close to so many places and there is always something on.

Things become a treat here – a bit like how it was when I growing up.

On the decision to be an artist…

If I wasn’t an artist I really don’t know what I would be doing. I decided to be an artist when I was thirteen or fourteen, and I feel really lucky about that in a way.

I have friends who haven’t known what they want to do and that journey can be really difficult. They have swapped and changed and felt like they haven’t found their thing.

You are very lucky in this world if you know what you want to do and you can do it.

On the focus of colour in her works…

Artist Stanley Whitney once described the content of his paintings as purely the colour and I feel the same.

You are taught that form is the content, but colour is definitely the primary content of my work.

My colour palette is influenced by my visual world and often by the landscape and colour combinations I see on my morning walk. Recently I’ve been really inspired by J.M.W Turner and really inspecting his work. At the moment my work has a lot of green and blue – I will pair a very particular green seen in the landscape with a very bright green that is really quite intense. 

On the lessons on time and patience in art…

To be an artist you have to have a rigorous studio practice and you need to work really hard – when I was starting out I would spend ten to twelve hours each day painting and that’s what you needed to do to refine your skill.

Painting takes time and unfortunately we don’t live in a world that is about that anymore – when you can download something in seconds, why paint something for months?

But I think all sorts of art practices are about slowness. The embroideries take immense amount of time but there is something kind of special about that – there is a whole thinking process that takes you somewhere that requires an enormous amount of patience I think. 

On the fascination of people...

I am continuously fascinated by people’s differences. Also why people might uproot their lives and move and make that leap.

I meet a lot of people here in Castlemaine who might be from say the Northern Territory and I think, how did you get here? What made you decide to shift? I’m really interested in people’s choices and listening to people.

I value that – people’s stories. I’ve met some really interesting people up here who have made big decisions seemingly quite easily. It’s interesting. 

What people do with their time is what is most important. That doesn't have to be producing something or making something, it can be as simple as being kind.

On wishing for more time… 

Even though I am in Castlemaine and things have slowed down, I do sometimes feel I am rushing the kids.

A few months ago we had a great time at WOMADelaide, we took three weeks and went for a road trip. I’d love to do that with them multiple times a year, but then you get a letter from the school reminding you they have to learn their times-tables.

I think if I could change anything, it would be to be able to just enjoy moments and not let moments go.

Just taking those moments and setting everything else aside. It’s the same with being in the landscape and not rushing through it, instead taking your time to go through places.

We have to learn to abandon our thoughts of how something should be and just experience it for what it is. But it can be quite difficult to let everything go.

 On the difficulties of being a young artist Today…

I also think it is very different being young now. When I was a young artist it was very feasible financially – you could work three nights a week washing dishes to cover your rent and food and then have time for art school and making.

None of us came from affluent families but we had time to be active and make lots of work – we were out there living the life that we wanted to.

But I think that is quite different now. Sometimes people have to go back and do another degree and if they want to have an exhibition they have to pay $2,000 a week whereas it used to be $50 a week. 

On keeping a notebook…

I keep a notebook to remember. I adore the author Donna Tartt and that’s something she does – she might have written something in a notebook ten years ago and it can spark an idea for an entire novel. I really love that process and feel I’m like that too.