Art

We’re pleased to welcome Melissa Dachtler for her first solo art show at Chartham Vineyard.

Artistic Focus: Her work reflects the vibrant, transient qualities of the natural world, exploring the boundaries where the land meets the sky and where negative and positive spaces create layers within landscapes and skyscapes. Melissa works mostly on large canvases but enjoys using a variety of mixed-media techniques on other surfaces.

Inspiration: Melissa has been heavily influenced by a move to a high-elevation farming area with its dramatic light shifts, changing weather patterns, and rural colour play.

Style & Technique: Melissa’s brush strokes are rooted in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist traditions - using swift, energetic mark-making enables her to capture the spontaneity and essence of a moment. Her rapid, urgent execution keeps pace with the fleeting, ever-changing landscape and captures the vast, dynamic scales of shifting skyscapes.

Artistic Philosophy: With a mixture of play and curiosity at its core, Melissa is able to create semi-abstract landscapes that balance recognisable horizons with rich, layered textures.

Education: She specialised in Fine Art Painting at the University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury (1996–1999), and held her debut exhibition nearby in Chartham, Kent.

Teaching & Community: Melissa had a 30-year career in education, including 16 years leading the Art and Photography department at a local grammar school and over 8 years teaching adult watercolour classes in Thanington.

Will Dickinson Artist - Wood Turner/Sculptor
Throughout all his work, Will explores man’s relationship with materials. As a self-taught woodturner, he uses traditional methods to combine wood and found materials – demonstrating the adaptive and adoptive nature of wood while making us aware of how it integrates into our homes and environments. In addition, through a conceptually driven practice, Will exposes each material’s individual identity through the alteration of function, form, purpose and origin.
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Isabel Dickinson - Ceramic and Textile Artist
Excited by colour, texture and pattern, Isabel is influenced by her organic surroundings. Her work is mostly wheel thrown ceramics, producing decorated vases and pots using underglazes as an integral part of the decoration alongside textural impressions using natural plants materials. The intriguing addition of felted textiles is currently being explored, with the connectivity of stitch.
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Khoa Mahon – Jewellery maker
Through her delicate designs Khoa explores the beauty and fragility of nature. Her distinctive silver jewellery pieces, often embellished with freshwater pearls and gemstones, are inspired by natural forms and textures captured in moments of quiet contemplation.
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