Melissa Bonin

Melissa Bonin’s work explores the relationship between 

Heaven and Earth, Light, and Darkness. 

Her fascination is with the union between Earth and the sky and the cosmos, both ancient and universal.  I paint journeys rather than landscapes to show what is behind the scene. I paint an opening through space. This entryway includes obstacles that define the path from darkness into light. I use perspective to draw the viewer in like a bee to a flower. But then I want the viewer to go beyond that deep into the water, turning inward toward deeper meaning via the vehicle of the water and land. 

Referencing historical landscape painting, the work presents a perspective into which are inscribed her two lineages of French and Acadian heritage and influences of teachings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey and Hero with a Thousand Faces. 

She believes in redemption through the individual recognition of one’s being and the personal process of individuation. I work with accessible symbols, land, trees, water, and sky, which link us with the past. These symbols create a simultaneous continuity, and we recollect our origins.