Melissa Fontini is a visual artist who explores intimacy and our relationship with the body. Originally from a conservative background, Melissa wants to uncover the innermost secrets

and knowledge of the body. Driven by her desire to understand vulnerability and honesty, she creates intimate landscapes that mirror our deepest fantasies, dreams, fears, and aspirations in colour and line.
 

Fontini invites people from different backgrounds and cultures to her studio and canvas to create a piece together in the nude to express themselves, ultimately creating the base layer while delving into deep conversations. Engaging the body in this practice allows both the artist and "sitter" to break past daily protection mechanisms and access parts of the subconscious mind. Closely related to art therapy, these integrative methods engage the mind, body, and spirit in ways that are distinct from verbal articulation alone. Kinaesthetic, sensory, perceptual, and symbolic opportunities invite alternative modes of receptive and expressive communication, which can circumvent the limitations of language. This is where the magic lies.
 

Our bodies hold more knowledge of ourselves than we will ever understand or be able to explain. And so, Melissa's mark-making lives in movement echoing the rhythm of the bodies she interacts with, it is the conversations between artist and sitter that drive the visual topography of her work – creating necessary transparency in the ordinary hierarchies of power, status, social class, sexuality and education.