Michelle Bellamy

Nelson artist Michelle Bellamy comes from a family of artists.  Growing up her spare time involved heated drawing competitions between family members and expeditions into the outdoors with her illustrator mother and painter and photographer father. Michelle has worked in all mediums but has a great love for the special qualities that acrylic paint offers. Acrylics suit her temperament and particular way of using illustrative detail combined with water-colour layers. Bellamy paints with acrylics on board, with the occasional work on linen.

  The purity and brightness of her palette captures and intensifies the clarity of New Zealand’s light, holding her subject matter up in stunning colour and detail. Often drawn to the water’s edge, through precision brushwork and careful layering, acrylic paint serves to render extraordinary the iconic and much loved baches and boathouses of our recent past.  In her new work these are sometimes juxtaposed with the contemporary Auckland skyline, an added dimension which both records our history and channels a certain nostalgia for golden days gone by. The beauty of New Zealand draws her back, and she has a deep personal bias for New Zealand vistas.