Dean Melbourne

Artists Statement

My work is an exploration of our desire to fantasise and escape, to indulge and submerge in fictional worlds and stories, to build myth, to make a life less ordinary. My work both celebrates and criticises this aspect of human nature. From the sense of magic and wonder that illusions can offer to make our lives ever more exhilarating to the more frightening idea that our belief systems and evaluations of  self worth must be affected when we are left to judge our lives against these ideals and extremes.

The sources of my work include images of the glamorous and extraordinary offered to us by popular culture; the physical perfection of fashion editorials and the heightened emotion of cinematic lives. I look to entwine fantasy moments such as these with my own often melodramatic emotional or physical experiences. I am interested in a fusion of fantasy with personal confession and the exaggeration of these elements to create the extraordinary.



FUTURE AND CURRENT  EXHIBITIONS
June 7th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2010
May 10  North Worscester Open 2010, Artrix, Bromsgrove
July 9 - 24th The Big Itch, The Volte, Wolverhampton


EXHIBITIONS
2009 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London

2009 Moment, The Viner Gallery, Wolverhampton Grammar School, Wolverhampton
2009 Past In Present, Artworks Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne

2009 Surface Gallery Open 09, Surface Gallery, Nottingham

2009 Staffordshire Open, Shire Hall Gallery Stafford.

2008 079Exhibition. Lichfield Passage, Wolverhampton.
2008 The Something Foundation, The Churchill Citizens Club, Acocks Green, Birmingham

2006 Claire Gallery, Hockley, Birmingham. 

2005 City Art. Hockley, Birmingham
 
2004 Holocaust Memorial Exhibition. Netherton Arts Centre.

2004 Mid Art Open Exhibition, Himley Hall.

2003 Instincts of Attraction, Living Galley, Stourbridge

2003 Mid Art 2003 Himley Hall, Dudley

2002 Mid Art 2002 Himley Hall Dudley

2002 Tell the Truth Shame the Devil, Levenshulme, Manchester

2000 Tell the Truth Shame the Devil Custard factory Birmingham

1999 What is Drawing? Waiting Room Gallery Wolverhampton 



Grants/Awards
09 - 10 AA2A Scheme, Fine Art Print, Wolverhampton University 

Projects
2009 Contemporary Life Drawing Workshop, Diana and Actaeon – The Forbidden Gaze, Compton Verney

2009 Course Assistant, Metapod Fast Forward in association with Fierce and Business link

2008 Expressive Life drawing Workshop, Oskar Kokoschka – Exile and Home, Compton 
Verney

2008 The Art of Growing, in association with TAP Touring Arts Projects.


Publications
Featured in Royal Academy Illustrated 2009
Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil, Review, AN Jan 2001