The colours in the back ground represent the pilbara landscape with a hint of colour piercing through representing the scattered wildflowers found all across the country side, like the red sturt pea. The white circles on top represent man made structures from roadhouses,bridges,pipelines to small communities and towns whilst leaving gaps to represent the long stretches of countryside.
Name: Melissa Sandy
Language: Yindjibarndi
Biography:
Melissa Sandy was born in Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Her mother was a Yindjibarndi woman from Roebourne and her father is from Adelaide. She spent her early years in Roebourne and when she was four, moved with her parents to South Australia. The rest of her childhood and teenage years she lived with her family moving through South Australia, the Pilbara and the Kimberely. After boarding school in Darwin, she relocated to Roebourne and has been there ever since, staying close to family. She is mother to seven children of her own and is grandmother to five.
Melissa started painting in late 2006. She has no formal training and painting started as something to pass the time. She quickly developed her own style with a natural flair for design and dot painting. As she continues on her painting journey she has developed a more contemporary style. Melissa is meticulous about her choice of colours, spending a lot of time mixing her paints to achieve the right colours to complement each other. The stories that go with her paintings express the land and the plants from her Country and the stories told by her Elders. Melissa’s work is deeply personal and she is known for expressing her emotions through her paintings. She uses her art as a way of processing everyday life so her paintings give intimate insight into her inner world.
Melissa has exhibited locally and nationally including Tracks We Share (AGWA), Colours of Our Country (Perth), Chalk Horse Gallery (Sydney) and Cossack. Melissa’s artistic achievements continue to grow and receive recognition Australia wide. In 2023, Melissa won the Judge’s Prize in the Jury Art Prize and was a finalist again in 2024. She won the overall Pilbara Indigenous Category at the Cossack art awards in 2024 and was announced as a finalist for the Telstra NATSIAA.
Melissa is currently working on her first solo exhibition titled ‘The Void Series’, which expresses her journey through grief and healing after losing a loved one. This body of work is a tribute to her late mum (aunty) and seeks to create a space for healing for herself, her community and anyone who has lost someone they love.
Midnight sky This painting reminds me of when we go camping out bush we always camp out in the flat where we can see the stars shining.
Honey Ants Honey ants are shown here collecting food before winter. Bunjima people call the food ‘mulma nujnu’. This name comes from the leaves, and another name is ‘ngardanu’, which comes from the branches.