EXHIBITION works
Territory
2022/2023 Mel was selected for Craft and Design Canberra’s acclaimed artist-in-residence program, in partnership with the National Library of Australia’s Map collection and Parks ACT. Her research and resulting works explored the idea of territory – as a geographic, political and personal concept, and the intersections of these as a means of investigating and representing the many layered and complex ideas around place – land use, ownership, dispossession, stewardship, memory and personal connection.
Read the catalogue here
Ingress Egress Regress
2019/2020 Ingress, Egress, Regress is an installation of over 270 slipcast porcelain animal bones, exploring the historic and continuing impacts of pastoralism on the Northern Territory’s land, people, flora and fauna.
Intersections and boundaries
Intersections and Boundaries is the culmination of Mel’s research and experimentation as the 2018/2019 Araluen Cultural Precinct Creative-in-Residence recipient. Responding to both two and three-dimensional works from the Araluen Art Collection these works explore the idea of Place through the lens of mapping and cartography.
Cartography
2016- 2018 These works draw on a long standing interest in cartographic representation and the many ways in which we understand, represent and experience landscape.
Sequences and cycles
2011-2012 Made in response to a move to the desert of Central Australia, these works explore the ways in which we might access, construct and develop a personal sense of place through noticing, observing and representing the small changes and cycles in the natural world around us.
The Underside
2010-2011 The Underside is inspired by the tradition of blue and white ceramics. It draws attention to the marks of the makers, the history of use embedded in the chips, stains and scratches of these sometimes old and often discarded objects, and questions what value (or not) we place on them.
keep calm and carry on
2008 -2010 These works are informed by the personal stories of women in Mel’s family and their experiences of war time from the perspective of being at home. Found ceramic objects and water jet cutting techniques are combined with handmade porcelain works to explore ideas of war, family, loss and patriotism. Read more about these works here.
The absence of objects
2006 -2007 The relationship between objects and personal narrative is the basis of these works, in particular the role objects can play in not only how we remember but also how we forget the past and how, in the absence of objects, stories can disappear.