Photo by Neil Lukas
The paintings I started during an artist residency in Gloucester, Massachusetts began to make sense when my father gave me his old sail-repair needles that he used forty-five years ago when racing his boat, the Icy Folly, in San Francisco Bay.
The inspiration for my paintings comes from the working side of the maritime world—the colors and textures of tankers, containerships and rusty old bulk carriers. I’ve known this environment all my life. The colors and markings on these working ships are endlessly varied and often starkly beautiful, especially at the waterline. The rusted scrapes, drips and smears; the characteristic lettering and numbers, give each vessel a distinct personality. These ships travel the world, and each port they visit leaves its mark, which inscribes the story of each ship on its skin. Most of my work begins with an image from this seldom-painted side of the maritime world. Rather than paint a ship from stem to stern, I focus in “close-up” on its markings. I keep in mind a favorite saying of my teacher Charles Emerson: “Reality is highly over-rated.” I thus manipulate color, perspective, composition, and texture, and as a result my paintings include realistic images that become abstract canvasses.
Painter Melinda Hannigan has shown her work in galleries and museums in the United States and Europe. An exhibition of her work called “Scratching the Surface: Exploring the works of Melinda Hannigan” was held at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in 2005–2006. Her paintings were used extensively in the documentary “Sweet Crude,” a film about the oil industry, pollution, and social protest in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. The 2008 publication of the book Women of the Sea included a chapter about Melinda and her art. Melinda is often asked to speak including being featured on Oregon Public Radio and while she was an Artist in Residence in Ireland.
In addition to visual art Melinda loves music and plays the doghouse bass with friends and is learning the ukulele.
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