Rhythm Adjust

The Blind Light series of unique photograms reference the quality of light in the Icelandic landscape, which developed an interest to explore light as a medium.

To arrive at a final image in a photographic dark room, Mellor uses a cyclical process of adding and removing paint to create a rhythmic and repetitive mark making that invites a tension between control and chance.  The paint is exposed to light multiple times and the shadows fixed onto light sensitive paper.  This is then erased and reconfigured for the next piece, thus making each work a unique multiple.

The confident gestures show a sensitivity to the moment however the multiple exposures create a temporal layering, attempting to challenge the fixity of the marks and creating a visual uncertainty. The paint dances between absence and presence; a material that is restless and impermanent, only leaving a trace in the final image.

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 multi-exposure paintings made in the darkroom use light as an agent to capture the shadows of brief, gestural movements of paint which are fixed within the surface of photographic paper. Moments are layered in repetitive passes to create dense mark-making and each photogram print is ultimately unique. Projects in three dimensions playfully bridge a gap between photography and painting and create exciting sensory viewing experiences.

More recently there is return to colour and a shift into collage as a visual expression and reaction to the un-colourful life experienced during periods of lockdown. They are a representation of the positive energy normally generated and shared by our daily relationships and interactions, which have of course been subdued.

Accolades

Education:  MA Fine Art, Distinction, City & Guilds of London Art School, 2015. Illustration BA Hons, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2009. Foundation in Art & Design, City College Brighton, 2006.

Recent exhibitions and projects include Enter the Abstract with The Auction Collective, group show Render Permanent at Lewisham Arthouse, Abstract Reality at Saatchi Gallery, Salon 19 at Photofusion and The Shape of Light, a collaborative residency and installation project at Lumen Studios. 

Zanny is co-curating Rhythm Adjust with Hannah Payne as part of The Breath Project, a creative community exploring health and wellbeing.

Zanny's work is held in private collections in the UK, Europe, South Africa, UAE and Australia.

www.zannymellor.com  
@zannymellor
@the.breathproject