MELISSA AYR PAINTS WITH AIR
Contemporary Abstract Artist, Melissa Ayr is an artist who paints with air. Ayr has emerged from her studio with a fresh perspective on contemporary painting with her unique practice of using a leaf blower to push paint on canvas. Her instrument of choice is her signature leaf blower which enables Melissa to move layers of paint across the canvas with swift strokes creating an ethereal style that is neither tempered nor deliberate.
Melissa has been known to use non-traditional methods to produce her works. She has painted with her fingers, hands, arms, breasts, feet and her entire body often bathing in the colors she uses to create. Drizzling, pouring, flowing, throwing have been in her artistic repertoire as tools in her arsenal. Melissa is not attuned to any prescribed method, but chooses to be sporadic, spontaneous and unabashed in her approach to a new piece.
The paintings below represent a selection of leaf blower paintings by Melissa Ayr.
Ayr is not new to the concept of layering. There is a natural evolution that has taken place that has developed painting by painting and continues to evolve still. With experimentation comes new ground as she defines the style of work she builds. Ayr will often start with the colors at hand and expand. Pushing, pulling and mixing to create her unique art. Paint flows, it dries, it lies somewhere betwixt a liquid and permanence. With the addition of paint, layers form to create a background ripe for expansion or content to be present. Ayr applies the paint in translucent layers on the Canvas and is able to control the air to bend and shape into the essence of floral.