Coastal Canopies

Bellingen-based contemporary painter Melanie Waugh returns to Michael Reid Northern Beaches in February with her luminous new solo exhibition, Coastal Canopies. A homecoming of sorts for one of the most beloved names in our stable of represented artists, this marks Waugh’s first full-scale solo presentation since the acclaimed Due North in early 2025 – a pivotal project that found the artist pushing her practice into more ambitious and expansive terrain. Further honing her buoyant, emotionally resonant style while deepening her engagement with the New South Wales coastline, Waugh returns with a sublime collection of expressive coastal scenes that envelop the viewer in a lush tangle of foliage – conjuring a mood both familiar and faraway as it moves through a sequence of languid waterside idyls.

Across some of Waugh’s largest canvases yet, Coastal Canopies travels from Bangalley Headland in Avalon, just north of our Newport gallery, to the subtropical reaches of Byron Bay. Along the way, the artist pauses at places such as Arakoon, Angourie and The Basin, distilling their atmospheres into paintings that feel less like descriptive records than sensory impressions shaped by memory, movement and light. As artist Joel Dickens writes in the exhibition catalogue, “Although most of these places have been known to Mel for years, some have been stumbled upon more recently, sparking an immediate connection.”

Throughout the exhibition, glittering expanses of aquamarine water are framed by spiky pandanus, swaying palms and strappy foliage, brought to life through Waugh’s confident, full-bodied applications of colour and gesture. Thick, expressive brushstrokes build surfaces that shimmer with luminosity, while compressed perspective draws foreground and background into close proximity. “A myriad of greens and blues sit in lush relief from the canvas surface, against washes of peach and lilac,” writes Dickens, noting how Waugh subtly subverts depth to create images that hover between representation and abstraction.

Alongside the sunlit seascapes that have become a hallmark of her practice, Coastal Canopies presents a suite of beachy nocturnes in which deep ultramarine skies appear dusted with a smattering of stars and moonlight glides above darkened waters and silhouetted trees. These paintings carry a hushed, enchanted atmosphere, evoking the particular magic of a breezy subtropical summer night soundtracked by the rhythmic roar of the ocean.

A gentle nostalgia runs through Coastal Canopies, evoked by familiar shoreline details, bobbing fishing boats and motifs that feel, as Dickens notes, “universally recognisable”. “The careful placement of fishing boats and palm trees against an aquamarine ocean,” he writes, “is evidence of a language built beyond the initial scene of inspiration and created during the process of painting.”

While Coastal Canopies is anchored by several expansive, immersive canvases, it is punctuated by a group of more intimate works depicting shells gathered from the shoreline. In these closely observed paintings, Waugh applies her expressive vocabulary to the sculptural forms of beachcombed finds, revealing their quiet monumentality and tactile presence. Together, the sweeping coastal vistas and these smaller studies speak to the breadth of her vision – from enveloping environments to moments of concentrated attention.

With Coastal Canopies, Waugh continues to honour the natural world through what Dickens describes as “a spontaneous, yet multifaceted, interpretation”. Referencing the visual shorthand of the picture postcard and travel photography, she paints the coast not as a fixed image but as an accumulation of sensation – filtered through time, memory and feeling. Her bold, loosely gestural brushwork conveys a sense of lightness and ease that feels attuned to the rhythms of the environments she depicts. The resulting series is at once buoyant and assured – grounded by experience and open to chance – inviting the viewer to linger within its rhythms of light, colour and coastal air.

For enquiries, please email sophienolan@michaelreid.com.au