Marie Eve Melnyk

Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia

Artist statement

I paint large-scale oil on canvas: figures and animals held inside landscapes suspended between dream and catastrophe — immense skies, water without a fixed edge, storms gathering somewhere beyond the horizon. A single dog recurs throughout the work. He is a witness rather than a subject: he does not interrupt the storm, does not explain it, does not turn away. He comes from someone real — a dog I found beside a road after he had been struck by a car, his body broken, his eyes holding no accusation, only an astonishing willingness to continue living. He became, for me, an image of the soul that endures without turning bitter. My work sits at the intersection of symbolism, psychology and mysticism. William Blake remains my closest reference point, and I read theology not in search of doctrine but in search of its questions: what a person chooses to believe when confronted with safety or with loss, peace or the feeling of void. The paintings are built in layers, and they are made from stillness. You observe overwhelming forces from a distance and being untouched by them. If my work asks a single question, it is : can we recognize the peace we already inhabit while standing before the storm that might never truly affect us?

Artwork