Danie Mellor
| Danie Mellor | |
|---|---|
| Born |
13 April 1971 (age 46) Mackay, Queensland |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Education |
North Adelaide School of Art Birmingham Institute of Art and Design Australian National University |
| Known for | Painting, printmaking, sculpture |
| Notable work | From Rite to Ritual |
| Movement | Urban indigenous art |
| Awards | National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award 2009 |
Danie Mellor (born 13 April 1971) is an Australian artist who was the winner of the 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Born in Mackay, Queensland, Mellor grew up in Scotland, Australia and South Africa before undertaking tertiary studies at North Adelaide School of Art, the Australian National University (ANU) and Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. He then took up a post lecturing at Sydney College of the Arts. He works in different media including printmaking, drawing, painting, and sculpture. Considered a key figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art, the dominant theme in Mellor's art is the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian cultures.
Since 2000, Mellor's works have been included regularly in National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibitions; in 2003 he was awarded a "highly commended", for his print Cyathea cooperi, and in 2009 he won the principal prize, for a mixed media work From Rite to Ritual. His other major exhibitions have included the Primavera 2005 show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and the National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia in 2007. In 2012, his work was included in the National Museum of Australia's exhibition Menagerie: Contemporary Indigenous Sculpture as well as in the second National Indigenous Art Triennial, while international recognition came in 2013 with representation in the National Gallery of Canada's exhibition of international indigenous art.
Mellor was born in Mackay, Queensland, in 1971. His father was of American and Australian descent; his mother had Irish, Mamu, Ngagen, and Ngajan heritage. Mellor's maternal great-great-grandmother, Eleanor Kelly, and great-grandmother, May Kelly, were Indigenous Australian people from the rainforest country around Cairns. The family was : in his first twenty years, Mellor lived in Mackay, Queensland; Scotland; Brisbane, Queensland; Sutton Grange, Victoria; Adelaide, South Australia; and Cape Town, South Africa, as well as in the Northern Territory. Mellor went to school at Steiner Schools in South Australia and South Africa; in high school he was taught art by his mother. Looking back at the influence of his schooling upon his art, he remarked how, despite the Eurocentric origins of Rudolf Steiner's approach to education, "there are comparable elements and themes inherent in [Steiner's] philosophical narrative that parallel an Indigenous outlook, which is holistic in the way it approaches deeper and more intuitive readings of the environment and landscape."
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