Woodside Artist Profile: Melanie Cooper, Visual Artist

Melanie’s painting and sketches are filled with meaningful metaphors and evoke every kind of emotion. Her soft brush strokes and elegant colour pallet contrast with the powerful messages she sends to her audience.  Melanie, as such a young artist, has a new voice and style of art.

Melanie’s charcoal sketch demonstrates a divine take on a classic young man by simply using the elegance of the colours black and white . And by making the end table a tad unrealistic, Melanie adds a modest twist to this classic look. The crisp shadows on the young man’s suit brings texture and realism to the piece. And the contrast of the boys confident body language and his timid facial expression brings curiosity to the viewers eyes. This is a truly classic piece of artwork.

Drawing  inspiration from the enchanting Mother Nature, Melanie painted a mural upon her bedroom wall, inviting her audience to view the mural the way they please. With numerous interpretations of peace, hope, forgiveness, and nature, one interpretation of this complex piece is as a symbol for the salvation of nature. Her woman, possibly mother nature, painted in a pure blue, the colour of fidelity. She is staring up to the clear heaven for deeper thoughts, while possible pleading to be saved by a stronger force. Over-sized puzzle pieces around Mother Nature’s head convey that the puzzle of saving mother nature has not yet been solved. She has placed the foot and hand prints of humans upon the face of mother nature symbolizing the everlasting impression humans have on nature. Only if humans are willing to sign a peace treaty with nature will this jigsaw puzzled be solved. This is one of the numerous ways to view this piece. But for Melanie it is a reminder that when she wakes in the morning and before falling asleep at night, Mother Nature is beside her side, and she in return must be by the side of Mother Nature when she cries out of fright.

Melanie is taking the art class at Woodside not only because “[she] wishes to improve on the skills that [she] lacks on needed to succeed in the world of art, but, because it allowed [her] to have a needed break” from analytical thinking in her other classes. Having this form of visual expression has allowed her to have interesting perspectives in her writing assignments, Latin projects, and Drama class.

Although Melanie has the makings of an Artist someday, she is unsure if she going to or wants to have art as a job choice, but she knows she going to have art always in her life.

Melanie is one of the many artists at Woodside High School that has benefited from putting art in her life to express herself in a peaceful manner.