Melinda Schneider Gets Personal With Tender Art

It was standing room only for Melinda Schneider’s Tender art exhibition opening at Tamworth Regional Gallery on Friday.

Melinda’s Tender exhibition contains paintings on plywood based on the songs on her upcoming album, Tender.

Her artist statement sums it up:

“soft. vulnerable. gentle.
sensitive to pain.

I’ve always been tender, in every sense.
As an empath, I feel to the bone.

As a young woman my tenderness worked against me… fruitless and painful.
Something had to give.

I began a journey of self-acceptance; slowly becoming brave enough to stand tall in my own skin.

The journey led to my wonderful husband, and our baby boy and a deeper, more authentic creative expression.

Now, I can be tender for my son. Soft with nature. Vulnerable with others. Gentle on myself.

And tender through my art.

For this exhibition, the musical composition came first, then the visual works.

I created the album Tender and developed 12 original paintings representing the 12 songs from the album.

I created each piece by applying acrylic to plywood with brushes, twigs, rollers, rags and sponges.

Plywood has so many gorgeous flaws – it’s the perfect surface for the techniques I use, which are similar to the rhythmic pulse of songwriting.

I hope that as you experience Tender, you connect with your own journey – and feel proud of how far you have come.

— Melinda x”

At the opening, the multi-award-winning NSW Central Coast artist was open with her audience about how she turned to painting after she experienced crippling depression.

“My depression was from perfectionism, very, very high expectations,” Melinda said.

“I had a collapse, and I had to learn to lower my expectations, be gentle on myself and I ended up launching a website called begentleonmyself.com.au. I’ve been keynote speaking for the last five years and sharing my story and my art has become a big part of my healing, and it’s taught me a lot of lessons. So, I was lucky enough to find a wonderful art teacher called Annie Reid in my local area on the Central Coast.

“She taught me that there are no mistakes in art.”

Melinda then listened to each song on her new album, Tender, as if she was listening to them for the first time and thought about what colour each song would be and came up with this collection of paintings inspired by each song.

“I like painting on plywood, and I love plywood because it’s imperfect,” she said.

“It’s got a lot of flaws, as we do as humans and every piece of plywood is different, so you end up with a different result for every painting as well.”

Melinda performed three songs at the opening including Deep River, dedicated to her mum, Mary Schneider.

“She’s 93 now and she’s amazing,” she said.

“She’s such a survivor, but it’s been a really tough six months for her and me – very emotional and very sad and there’s a lot of grieving going on, as it does when you’re coming towards the end of your life.”

The exhibition is now on at Tamworth Regional Gallery and Melinda releases Tender, the title track of the album, which is a duet with Diezel, on January 30 with the album out on February 6. Anyone who pre-orders the CD via Melinda’s website goes into the draw to win one of her paintings.

Melinda Schneider performs at Tamworth’s Capitol Theatre on Saturday, January 24 at 11am before performing at the Golden Guitar Awards.