The newest Masterworks’ artist-in-residence has a special affinity for the Island — she spent the first seven years of her life here.Melissa Wishart, 48, has finally returned to paint and reconnect with Bermuda’s culture.She will present a slide show and lecture about her life and work, tonight at Masterworks. In England she is well known for her oil paintings; she also sculpts.“I am thrilled to be back in Bermuda as the Masterworks’ artist-in-residence,” she said. “My parents, Joanna and Royce Baxter, first came here for a honeymoon. They stayed ten years, left, and returned with three children.“My father was an architect and we lived at Cleave Cottage in Paget. We went back to England. My father eventually came back to Bermuda to live and I visited him 18 years ago. He died five years ago. This is a big return for me.”On her first day back in Bermuda she went to Tobacco Bay in St George’s and painted it and swam there.“It was magic,” she said.However that connection wasn’t really the reason she applied to be Masterworks’ artist-in-residence, she said.“I live in Bradford Upon Avon in Wiltshire,” said Mrs Wishart. “A lady bought a sculpture from me. We started chatting about my life, and she told me about the [programme].”Now she is looking forward to painting the waters of Bermuda and has already discovered phthalo blue, a colour she rarely needed in England.With Bermuda’s blue sky and blue water, she has found she needs to use it quite a lot.Mrs Wishart studied at St Martins School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art whilst studying for her honours degree at Edinburgh University.She started off as a television documentary filmmaker, but was commissioned to create large-scale video projections in theatre and site-specific settings for artists, dancers and actors.She continued to draw and paint on the side. As her work became better known through group exhibitions, she became more focused on oil painting.She has appeared in a number of group art shows in England. In 2010 she won the Appleyard Trophy Prize from the Frome Art Society.“I was in a painting exhibition and the people who visited the exhibition voted for the best picture,” said Mrs Wishart.While in Bermuda, Mrs Wishart intends to capture landscapes and scenery and work on experimental texture and surface painting techniques she had started to perfect back at home in England.“At [tonight’s presentation] I am going to talk about the role of light and sky in my work and also the painters I admire,” she said. “I will also talk about my Bermuda story. I knew my exhibition in Bermuda would be completely inspired by Bermuda from the first moment I spotted Bermuda from the plane. It was beautiful. It is quite an exciting challenge.”Mrs Wishart will hold oil painting workshops in September and an exhibition of her work will run at Masterworks September 14 to 29.Tonight, doors open at Masterworks at 5.30pm for a 6pm start. Tickets for members are $10; $15 for non-members. Soup and sandwiches will be served. For more information contact Robyn DeSilva on 299-4000.