Treasure is a new body of work by Hamilton based Canadian painter, Mellisa Neil. Melissa is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design and has works held in private collections in Ontario. Known for her lushly painted landscapes on mylar and linen, her work exalts the wild, mystical and sentimental found in forms of nature – both naturally occurring and manufactured by humans.

Treasure draws on imagery of roadside weeds, cliff faces, and seascapes. Based on photographs the artist captured in Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario, this series of oil paintings on mylar searchingly examines landscapes where grasses, flowers, and tangles of green brush can define the view.

treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:

your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.

– from Sea Poppies, by H.D.