Lost Landscapes

Collecting taxidermy snakes and various images of snakes that have been x-rayed with objects inside them, my research of the Goddess and ancient stories of The Oracle – the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (also known as the Pythia which relates to the python snake Apollo slew) was a starting point for these paintings. Fusing a human heart at the centre of the snake outer form which has a skeletal appearance.

All paintings are made with charcoal, pastel and oil crayons, acrylic and spray paint on gesso primed canvas. 

Arousal of the kundalini

Hybrids of infamous muses and mythical creatures, these ambiguous portraits with their empty eyes and translucent, cellular bodies, are a reflection of ourselves in the form of carnivalesque demons, animals and goddesses. This new series, The Muse is Exhausted, explores the relationship of the gaze and the gaze turned in on itself and to the primordial goddesses of myth and imagination. In a world preoccupied with the communication of self and image and a culture of looking and being seen, these portraits pose existentialist questions of who and what we are.

The Muse is Exhausted

These series of drawings and paintings are part of my solo show at Conway Hall, Holborn, London

Amorphous by Melissa Budasz

Series of drawings, mixed media and paintings on the myth of danae using my body and hair

Myth of Danae Series

Series of mixed media paintings on embroidery hoops and circular canvases

Slowly I piece myself together

Series of mixed media drawings re-defining myth and memory

Memory is the colour of ash

Series of circular paintings and drawings

Masked Sphinx