Melissa Hartley is a self-taught artist, that studied graphic design and who has been working for the last 16 years in publishing in Sydney and Edinburgh. In 2010 she decided to pick up the paint brush again and pursue her love of painting. Her compositions feature darkly poetic female portraits against undefined backgrounds, in a void or dream-like state. These mystical portraits of women, almost haunting in their beauty, are steeped in the natural world, each work contains an element of the supernaturally surreal. They are contradictions within themselves, brought to sensual life through surrealistic icons & symbols. Each subject is attractive, yet somehow disturbing.