ABOUT

Melanie graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from RMIT and holds a Masters of Arts Management.

As an artist, curator and arts manager, Melanie has worked in multiple capacities within the arts industry.

Over the last decade she has developed her practice to incorporate finely detailed oil paintings and large-scale exterior murals. Examining our relationship with the botanical world around us with a focus on immortalising a sense of place, she uses native flora, colour and avian species to activate walls and canvases to draw attention to the fragility and vibrancy of our landscape.

Melanie has exhibited in various group exhibitions and has staged solo exhibitions around Melbourne and in Gippsland, including a major solo exhibition in 2015 at the Latrobe Regional Gallery as the recipient of the annual Dick Bishop Memorial Award. Melanie has been commissioned to create public works in dozens of locations across Victoria, NSW and SA, working with local government bodies, commercial clients and private commissions.

Most recently completed a major commission with Rail Projects Victoria and Regional Rail Revival in 2022-2023 to create fabricated artworks at the new Bunyip and Longwarry railway stations.

Melanie established an arts management company in 2019. Arts Eleven Projects has managed a number of significant arts projects for clients including Gippsland Art Gallery, St Vincent’s Hospital and Western Health. Arts Eleven is currently overseeing the commission of 25 artworks for the new purpose-built Sunshine Mental Health and Wellbeing Centre in Melbourne’s west. In 2021 she was the project manager for the Victorian showing of the Archibald Prize.

Melanie was a finalist in the 2024 Percival Portrait Prize, a finalist in the 2022 and the 2019 KAAF Art Prize, the 2024 and 2023 Omnia Art Prize and the Winner of the 2016 People’s Choice Award in the Roi Art Prize. She has also been a selected mural artist for Frankston’s Big Picture Festival in 2021 and 2022, Urban Canvas Mural Festival in Melbourne 2023 and Benalla Street Art Festival 2024. 

While Melanie is based between South Gippsland and Melbourne, she can generally be found wherever her latest mural takes her. 

Photo at left by Karli Michelle Commercial, 2022.