Showcasing the hidden elements of history
Danie Mellor is a Contemporary Artist located in Bowral, New South Wales. His multidisciplinary research and practice explore intersections between contemporary and historic culture and the legacies of cultural memory and knowledge. Mellor’s work is exhibited in regional, state, and national collections, including the NGA and MCA Australia, and international museums including the National Gallery of Canada, The British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland. His work has received major awards, acquisitions and commissions including the MCA Australia’s Sculpture Commission in 2019, the National Gallery of Australia Member’s 2019 Acquisition Fund and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2009. He was awarded his PhD from the Australian National University in 2005 and held positions of lecturer and senior lecturer at the National Institute of the Arts, ANU and Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney respectively. In 2010 he was appointed to the Visual Arts Board at the Australia Council for the Arts and subsequently served as Chair of Artform until 2015. In 2020 he was appointed to the Board of MCA Australia and the Visual Arts Board of Create NSW.
Deriving inspiration from his own Aboriginal Heritage and the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian cultures, Danielle has pivoted his work around showcasing the hidden elements of a story. His engagement with Colonial Photograpphy drew heavily from his Aboriginal connection. He has employed infrared photography to show the same as it accentuates the dimensions and highlights the hidden light spectrum. Infrared photography is thus used by Mellor to symbolically highlight the hidden elements of history and touch on the core belief of ancestral presence of the Aboriginals.
Some of his notable works are Landstory (2018), Beneath Towering Palms (2018), An Answer to the Romantic Struggle (2018), Of Myth and Memory (2018), Dreaming Beyond Paradise(Let Sleeping Giants Lie) (2008), White Native (2004), Bayi Minyjirral (2013), Maba-I Bala Rugu (of Power in Darkness) (2013), A time of the World’s Making (2019), The Bounty (2017), On a Noncorreolationist Thought I- XIV (2016), A Gaze Still Dark ( a black portrait of intimacy) (2019), A Universe of Things (2016), Tales of the Departed (2021), On the Edge of Darkness (the sun also sets) (2020), The End of Certainty (2020), A Question of Being (2020), Against the Dying of the Light (2020), DYSTOPIA [all the debils are here] (2018).
Blue and gold elements are used extensively by Mellor. The use of the colour blue is significant as it is the only colour which is not associated with anything bad all around the world. The element of amalgamation of two different images into one gives a new experience and creates harmony between two different things. In his opinion capturing the essence of time, ethos of a community through mapping of stories is bound up in Visual Design and Art Form.