In the studio 2025. Photo by Yanis Angel.
About abstract painter Johanna Melvin
Johanna Melvin is a London-based artist whose practice is rooted in a process-led approach, where intuition and accident are balanced by a keen sense of structure and order. The interplay between control and gestural freedom is central to her work, inviting viewers to engage with both the formal qualities and the intuitive, or emotive content of each piece.
Her use of the grid motif - or intersecting horizontal and vertical lines - combined with painterly gesture and colour play, could be seen to suggest aerial views, or psychological maps, combining personal mood, memory, or state of mind - or as the artist describes, something akin to ‘non-linear visual diary entries’.
Artwork titles often arrive intuitively, inspired by conversations, literature, song lyrics, memories, places and sometimes personal preoccupations while a work is in progress.
Ocean (Pink), 2025. Buy this limited edition print.
News & exhibitions
Vice Versa a group exhibition curated by Johanna Melvin at Lea Bridge Road Pavilion, Leyton, London as part of the Terrace Gallery programme - The exhibition will be travelling to MIRROR, Arts University Plymouth - October 24th to December 18th 2025.
MIRROR, Arts University Plymouth, Tavistock Place, Plymouth PL4 8AT.
Opening times: Monday - Friday: 9am to 5 pm | Saturdays: 9am - 1 pm
Private View, Thursday 23rd October, 5 - 7 pm | Talk and tour of exhibition on Monday 17th November 6 to 7:30 pm.
This exhibition, curated by Johanna Melvin, was selected to be part of The Errant Collaborators, (A Play Within a Play) by artist and curator Dan Howard Birt.
Photo by Paul Tucker.
Now featured on Artsy . We launched this new collaboration at They Come They Sit They Go Project Space, Finch Cafe, 12 Sidworth St, London Fields, London E8 3 SD in May 2025.
I have a work on paper in this exhibition: rose is a rose is a rose curated by Belinda Worsley and Caroline McCambridge and recently show at They Come They Sit They Go Project Space, Finch Cafe Hackney and 57w57arts 501 Fifth Ave, Suite 701, New York NY USA.
Postcards for Seyðisfjörður, a mail art project in collaboration with Sluice and LungA School, Iceland. Organised by H_A_R_D_P_A_I_N_T_I_N_G
The exhibition is now travelling to the Icelandic Embassy in London.
Opening on Friday, 7th November.
I’m delighted to have two paintings included in ‘The Scene by the Sea’ an exhibition mapping Southend-on Sea’s musical history in celebration of the Thames Group of Artists 10th Anniversary.
At The Beecroft Art Gallery, The Old Central Library, Victoria Ave, Southend-On-Sea, SS2 6EX.
(Gallery is closed on Monday and Tuesday.) Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the Thames Group presents ‘The Scene By The Sea’, a multi-discipline exhibition featuring work by over 30 artists and special guests including; Billy Bragg, Phill Jupitus, Wilko Johnson, Ian Dury, Vivian Stanshall and more.
Artists such as renowned painter Simon Monk, award winning sculptor Anne Schwegmann-Fielding, portrait painter Victoria Sills, photographer Dean Chalkley and assemblage artist Catriona Faulkner have responded to locations plotted on a map created by author/musician Will Birch, artist and former ‘Clash’ right-hand man, Kosmo Vinyl together with graphic artist Jules Balme.
The map and resulting exhibition is an exploration of many of the hippest clubs, pubs, discotheques, dancehalls, coffee bars, music shops and fashion boutiques that were pivotal in helping to create Southend’s rich pop culture heritage.
Buy limited edition prints
Discover and collect signed limited edition prints by Johanna Martin.
