Amanda Melinz brings bold oil paintings of horses to Victoria Park Gallery

Amanda Melinz loves working with horses, and is now able to transfer that love to her oil paintings which are featured at the Victoria Park Gallery in downtown Kincardine, for the month of June.

Originally from Kincardine, where she was born and raised, Melinz, 38, now lives in the Hockley Valley, between Orangeville and Alliston.

With a degree in fine arts from the University of Ottawa, and a flexible work schedule, she is able to make time to create many of the bold and powerful works on display.

Melinz was the guest artist in Kincardine three years ago, but at that time, she said she was unable to draw horses because she was too close to them and knew them too well.

Fortunately, that has changed, and she has completed several large-scale oil paintings of horses - the images come together through the use of large loose brush strokes combined with a vivid pallet of colours.

She also continues her work in encaustic, a technique that uses bee's wax as the base medium mixed with resin, and then pigment.

Melinz has been the signature artist for the Headwaters and was involved in a number of events surrounding the Pan Am Games last summer. She still works in the equine industry and has a small studio called Stone Pony Studios.
 

The Victoria Park Gallery is located in the Kincardine Arts Centre in downtown Kincardine. It has now switched to summer hours and is open Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, Noon to 3 p.m.; Monday Market days, 8-11 a.m.; and during theatre nights.