Melissa Speed
biography
Melissa works in soft pastels to produce an instinctive recreation of what she sees.
A self-taught artist, Melissa trusts her instincts and puts pastel to Pastelmat. Her resulting efforts have earnt her longlist places in a number of art competitions including the Jackson’s Painting Prize 2023 and the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2023. When she appeared in the tenth series of Portrait Artist of the Year, the judges praised her storytelling through portraiture and admired the detail she achieved with the medium. Originally from Wolverhampton, Melissa now lives in Buxton, Derbyshire.
