Taranaki Emergence Award runner-up supreme winner holds first solo exhibition

Thanks Mum is a tribute to Melissa McCullough's mum. Photo / Jo Stallard

The 2022 Taranaki Emergence Award Supreme runner-up winner is hosting her first solo exhibition.

Melissa McCullough, 22, from Stratford, now living in Wellington, has seven encaustic artworks on display for her Thanks Mum exhibition at Fenton Street Arts Collective. She says the encaustic art medium provides her comfort.

“The process itself helps trigger good memories through texture, layers, and colours. It is a sensational practice, giving you the smell of the natural beeswax aroma, along with the comfort of the heating of wax, stirring luminous colours and applying them and fusing them in.

“The material also signifies eternal life, as beeswax is a durable material and has proven in art history to last hundreds of years and still looking new.”

Melissa McCullough, 22, has her first solo exhibition on display at Fenton Street Arts Collective. Photo / Jo Stallard

Melissa says she’s excited to host her first solo exhibition.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to showcase my work. It is the first big step for an emerging artist which can open doors and opportunities in the future.”

The exhibition is a tribute to her mum.

“Karyn McCullough was an artist in Taranaki. She was a potter and my teacher, who passed away April last year. Every memory I had with Mum I remember through using this art technique.”

She says the Emergence Awards gave her confidence in the art medium she used, but the confidence to do a solo exhibition came from her mum.

“She was always encouraging me to enter art pieces, the Fenton Street Arts Collective was a place Mum would take me when I came up to visit from Wellington, where we would have cake and coffee and endure the current artworks. This is a core memory of something Mum and I did together, and that is why this gallery was so meaningful for my first solo exhibition.”

The Details

What: Thanks Mum by Melissa McCullough

When: On display until June 15

Where: Fenton Street Arts Collective