Bellamy Gallery

About

Fine New Zealand Art by Michelle Bellamy - www.bellamygallery.org

Story

An extremely accomplished surrealist painter, Michelle Bellamy comes from a family of artists. She grew up and was educated in Nelson, New Zealand, with her parents and two younger sisters and brother. Michelle is a second generation New Zealander with Central/Northern European grandparents who were both artists. Spare time involved heated drawing competitions between family members, and expeditions into the outdoors.
Michelle is mainly self-taught, although both parents are artists, her mother a illustrator, and father a painter and photographer. She gained valuable knowledge and critiques of her paintings from them as her skills developed over the years. A painting would be finished and both parents would have to evaluate it before it could leave for the gallery. Michelle started painting works early in high school, and sold them in local cafes.
She now resides up The Brook in Nelson with her husband and two daughters, where she is inspired daily by the local landscape, and coastline.
Michelle has worked in all mediums but has a great love for the special qualities that acrylic paint offers. Acrylics suit her temperament and particular way of using illustrative detail combined with water colour layers. Bellamy paints with acrylics on board, with the occasional work on linen.
A full time painter of over 12 years, Bellamy is firmly established as a highly regarded and sought after New Zealand artist. Her dedication and commitment to compete at a high level is also reflected in the perfection she seeks as an artist. Her works are held in private collections world wide and she has recently completed a large commission, 3.1m x 2.4m for Sir Robert Jones for the foyer of the Forsyth Barr building in Auckland.
Michelle meanders up and down the country with her chosen subject matters, from the coast to alpine locations, never tiring of New Zealand's beautiful countryside. A few of the painting subjects that Michelle chooses to paint are under dispute of whether or not to leave them be, or to terminate them. Therefore, throughout her paintings she is looking to record a small part of New Zealand history, that in the relatively near future may no longer exist.
The purity and brightness of her palette captures and intensifies the clarity of New Zealand’s light, holding her subject matter up in stunning colour and detail. Often drawn to the water’s edge, through precision brushwork and careful layering, acrylic paint serves to render extraordinary the iconic and much loved baches and boathouses of our recent past. In her new work these are sometimes juxtaposed with the contemporary Auckland skyline, an added dimension which both records our history and channels a certain nostalgia for golden days gone by.beauty of New Zealand draws her back, and she has a deep personal bias for New Zealand vistas.

Galleries around New Zealand that show Michelle's art:

Parnell Gallery, Auckland
Quay Gallery, Napier
The Framing Rooms, Nelson
Gallery De Novo, Dunedin
Art Bay, Queenstown