In 2024 and again in 2025, Susan Wallis, the curator and owner of Melt Studio and Gallery, invited roster artists to join a unique collaboration. Artists with contrasting media and styles are paired together. Each then provides a work of art for their partner to inspire a unique new creation. For the mid-summer opening, a wine from Prince Edward County is also paired with the new artist partners and their work. The resulting exhibition is a dynamic pairing of artists, art and wine that is fun and produces some remarkable work.
For 2025, Kathleen has been paired with the Diane Twombly, a Hamilton-based visual artist whose surreal photo assemblages explore themes of decay, renewal and cycles of life and death in both natural and constructed environments – themes that resonate with Kathleen’s own work. Diane’s inspiration piece, I Dream of Magnolias, prompted Kathleen’s reciprocal work Castaway Dreams, a collage that responds exuberantly to the forms, colours and surreal spirit of the reference work. A scrap of marbleized paper, a torn black and white photograph and a fish print on Japanese paper are among the elements Kathleen has used to respond to Dianne ’s imagery and visual language.
In 2024, Kathleen was paired with Kay Gregg. She responded immediately to the colour and wit of Gregg’s mixed media collage, What was she thinking?. Her own resulting collage, Pleasant and Perky, engages with the sense of humour, whimsy and strong colour palette of Gregg’s piece. The layering of imagery and strong shapes followed naturally through piecing together elements of her own works, and Japanese papers.
