Melissa Baron is an expressive painter who grew up in Sherwood Park and resides in Edmonton. From an early age, she recalls watercolour painting beside her mother. Baron studied art first at the University of Alberta, then at Julian Ashton Art School in Australia. She combines her love of art with her other passion, teaching art at every opportunity. Her colourful painting ranges from rolling, dynamic skyscapes to quiet moments in domestic spaces, always with a focus on light, memory, and the passage of time. Baron’s work has been featured at Gallery @501, Bay 1 Gallery, and the Edmonton International Airport, and is part of the collections of the University of Alberta and Strathcona County.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My interest in skies began with colour-drenched winter sunrises. The coldest, longest nights end with transcendent and exhilarating colour. I paint sky after sky, finding they are never exhausted. There is always another wisp of violet-blue illuminating a cloud, another band of faintest green at the horizon to explore. Each day varies with the weather and the season.

Not always saturated with hue, skies darken at times with heavy storm clouds. On Alberta prairies, we watch the storms lurking on the horizon, creeping closer with every breath. The most violent storms are crushing: the wind bows us over, the howl deafens us, and the darkness blinds us. The sheer power of a storm exhausts our patience and resolve and brings us face to face with our frailty and terror.

And while things may never be the same – trees broken that will not regrow, a crop that is lost, flattened by the rain – something happens when we learn what fear really means. It can break us, but sometimes it can also create us. A storm can teach us not to fear a shadow because we have sat in the infinite dark. It also teaches us that when the sun does rise, its beauty is potent.

Most storms do pass, and our small world is transformed – whether the storm wracks the trees outdoors or the timbers of our hearts. As Robert Genn wrote, “It’s good to trust the skies. There’s a lifetime in them.”