Melanie Goemans

‘Melanie places emphasis upon the transitory elements present in the landscape. In a large diptych, a slither of Ely’s skyline runs along the lower edge of the two canvases, dwarfed by a dog rose that arches above the townscape as if it were a firework. The intricately painted briar is given pictorial priority over the more famous cathedral, eclipsing it and the town against a monumental sky. With its focus on a natural subject, it has all the balance of a Chinese painted screen.’ - Paul Barratt, Contemporary & County (2023)

‘I love their simplicity, their gentle palette, the way they focus our gaze on what might be overlooked as we pass them by on a walk, the common nettle and some grasses. But here they are, celebrated in paint, their beautiful and elegant forms commemorated, and for me these works take on an extra emotional resonance for the way they capture and elevate such an everyday plant, considered a weed.’ - Vanessa Lacey, Irving Contemporary (2023)

‘Goemans … distils beautifully the natural forms of trees, leaves, and birds that we often take for granted. The artist hones in on these usually rushed-past silhouettes, beautifying them with a delicate use of harmonious colour, or ornamenting tree branches with gold pigment. Her fine brush marks act like glinting weaving threads, alerting the viewer to the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary.’ - Kate Reeve-Edwards (2020)

‘The lines of the tree hover between tentative sketch and authoritative stroke, underscoring the memory-like quality of what we see around us. The sense of a past remembered is accentuated by the contrast between the precise foreground and the painterly and two dimensional background. Melanie Goemans studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art before completing a masters in painting. This classical training imbues her work.’ - The Dorchester, press release (2022)

'This year my favourite visit was to the studio of Melanie Goemans, an artist I hadn’t discovered before ... Hers is a beautifully quiet, subtle, provincial art evoking a sense of transience and of receptiveness. It felt very English and somehow akin to poetry. I could well imagine her work accompanying the poetry of Philip Gross, for example, or Edward Thomas.’ - Anthony Haynes, publisher (2013)

‘There is a strong graphic quality to many of Melanie’s works, which while exquisitely descriptive sometimes also contain passages in which the calligraphic lines become almost abstract in the complex interlocking patterns they create ... In the recent Fenland paintings of the River Great Ouse, there is a new fluidity which absolutely suits these watery images of a landscape dominated by its waterways, and again the calligraphic rendering of reflections of trees in the river borders on the abstract, or at least there is a loosening of the relationship between the marks and what they might appear to describe.’ - Vanessa Lacey, Irving Contemporary (2021)

‘Melanie Goemans uses traditional materials … in a contemporary manner. Seeking out overlooked, incidental forms in nature, she works with a very fine brush to simplify the rambling, chaotic lines of tangled weeds and overgrown vegetation. Goemans researches the history of the sites she depicts, imagining that as she builds her image mark by mark, the past begins to make itself present.’ - Pernilla Holmes, curator (2020)

‘At first glance, Melanie’s etchings and paintings appear as simple and sparse as the Fenland landscapes that inspire them. Yet, there is a fierce reverence in Melanie’s work that belies the humble subject matter. The more I looked at Hawthorn (triptych), the more I see its hidden depths. The tiny, deft brushstrokes have captured the hazy beauty of a wintery morning in Ely – when the air is thick and damp, and the cathedral looms on the horizon like a dark smudge. Melanie has given this fleeting moment status and value.’ - Lizzie Woodman, writer (2019)

‘The array of artistic techniques that Melanie Goemans uses so masterfully in her work is driven by her academic grounding in art history and her continued investigation of different mediums … The soft, atmospheric tones of her paintings are slowly rendered with broad strokes and delicate brushwork onto a smooth gesso surface. Out of the diffused light, deep shadows or highlights with gold and silver leaf are used by Goemans to define and reflect elements. In this way, she uses age-old materials and techniques in painting and printmaking to create muted, modern depictions of the natural world and to draw us into a timeless one.’ - Beau Brady, Beau Art Interiors (2018)

‘Melanie Goemans’ paintings implicate cartographic or anatomical interests with natural elements that are difficult to pin down. Whether describing the passage of water or the organic matrices of trees, she combines them with not a small degree of romanticism. Like Fra Angelico’s cell drawings at San Marco, they have a quality born from the physical space in which they are shown. Most recently Melanie has made quiet painterly interventions to shore up a tentative belief in mappable systems underpinning an otherwise un-mappable city. Consumed by construction and speed, the city nevertheless hides scores of precious spaces that allow personal reflection and escapist fantasy. Melanie looks for these elusive moments through drawing memories of such places … the spaces between the reaching branches making their own self-conscious gesture painstakingly filled in with flat, delicate tones.’ - Bruce Haines, writer and gallerist (2004)