Time to go Home
Product Details
This painting captures a fleeting moment in the Maiyalam Marine Park (Cone Bay on the Buccaneer Archipelago), an early morning departure as we pushed through the water to beat the wind and tides to make it back home. After days exploring and fishing in the heat, we had found refuge in freshwater springs, hidden amongst the rugged landscape. The rock formations and islands of this place are a wonder, some sharp and sheer, slicing the ocean from great depths; others a tumble of boulders, stacked by time.
On this morning, the rocks were alive with light. Though their colours shift throughout the day, this sunrise burned with a deep, vivid orange, bathing the land in an intense light. This work is a response to that moment where light, water, and stone converged in something both fleeting and eternal.
Mel Foster is a Broome-based painter working from her home studio in Broome, Western Australia. Deeply inspired by the natural environment of Northwest Australia, her paintings are abstract expressions of local vegetation and fauna. Her work explores the tension between bold, gestural brushstrokes and intricate patterning, using colour and expressive mark-making to evoke the form and spirit of her subjects.
A self-taught artist and practising florist, Foster regularly engages in artist-led workshops to expand her practice. Her work has been exhibited in numerous regional art awards, including the Hedland Art Awards, Kimberley Art Awards, Cossack Art Awards, and Shinju Art Awards. She was awarded the Mixed Media Prize at the Shinju Art Awards in 2016 and the Painting Prize in 2019.
73 cm x 122 cm x 3 cm
Mixed Media. charcoal, pen, graphite, pastel, acrylic
