Ross Melles

Ross Melles is an artist who lives with his family and works on the west coast of Auckland. He is teaching art and art history at a local secondary school. Ross gained a degree in art history and trained under the New Zealand sculptor, Paul Dibble whilst at Teachers training college in the Manawatu. He has been painting for 20 years and has exhibited regularly since five years ago. He has held 5 one-man and joint shows and continues to exhibit in Auckland galleries. The area in which he works has a profound effect on Ross's work.

Ross lives with his wife and four children in the Waitakere ranges just outside Auckland on the west coast. His studio is situated at his home. Much of his work is based around this area.

Ross is currently working predominantly in the painted media of acrylics and oil. In most of his work acrylic is the dominant medium which is then overworked with oil paint, both in a painted form and also drawn on in the form of oil stick. Ross often combines drawing and painting in one work. His emphasis is on the simple dynamic of getting a medium onto a surface and so the texture of the medium and surface play an important part in all of his work.

Ross tends to work on a large scale with some work stretching to a total of six metres across a wall (in one recent triptych). All of his work is done on artist quality canvasses or wooden " box frame". There is always an acid free archival layer underlying Ross's work. Occasionally Ross has also painted on prepared "found" surfaces ranging from driftwood to old bed-heads. He paints with brushes, pallette knives, sticks, dish mops, fingers, spray cans, or whatever else comes to hand which produces the desired effect.