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Karen Melvin - Photographer The driving force of my work is story telling, which initially came through documentary photography. As my family grew up, I began to tell my own more personal story in a broader practice ranging from introspective still life images, sequenced in hand bound books to collaborative environmental art. I have undertaken photography residencies and commissions working within the landscape and with the community, using environmental or dramatised portraiture. An important element is accompanying text, which gives a voice to the work and the people involved. Past exhibitions consist of work looking at the cycles of nature, ancient woodland, and gardens and more constructed pictures around the reflection of myth and fairy tale folk lore in our lives. This material gives me access to the unconscious and is flexible enough to throw light on the domestic dynamic between parent and child, male and female, youth and age.
Karen Melvin was born in Michigan, U.S.A., studied Fine Art at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (B.A. Hons), lectured in photography at Newcastle Polytechnic and most recently at Cleveland College of Art and Design for 15 years, was an adviser on photography for Northern Arts three times, and was a founding member and arts adviser for the environmental project, Ladycross Nature & Art. She was photographer in residence for the Middlesbrough 2000 Millennium Festival. She received a Northern Arts award and an A4E Lottery grant in 1996 for the project Fairy Tale, Myth and the Landscape. and a Visual Arts 1996 grant for The Four Winds Stone Circle, Northumberland. She was chosen to be part of the Great North Art Affair resulting in an exhibition, Borealis, at Flowers East Gallery, London, 2005. She was given a two-year Arts Council England, North East, Mentoring Scheme award in 2002 and an exhibition production grant in 2004 for Paper Dolls.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Group
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