Artist Statement
Melanie Sky is a contemporary artist living and working on Djaara Country in Maldon, Victoria. Her practice spans textiles, ceramics, and installation, drawing on materials and methods historically coded as “feminine” to challenge the cultural hierarchies that diminish women’s work. Rooted in personal narrative and driven by a strong sense of justice, Sky explores labour, resilience, and politics. Sky refers to her method of making as expanded crafting – a mode of making that values process, embraces imperfection, and turns the handmade into quiet acts of resistance. Her work often reclaims and reuses materials, transforming objects and spaces into charged sites where intention and defiance coexist.
Image by Carmen Bunting
CV
Education:
2025 - Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) RMIT, Naarm/Melbourne
2011 - Introduction to Photography - Technical and Aesthetic, RMIT short course
2008 - Making Your Mark in Drawing, RMIT
2001 - Certificate IV Visual Merchandising, Sydney Institute
2000 - Hunter School of the Performing Arts
Awards:
2023 Commendation - Women Researchers' Network Art Prize
Publications:
2023 Summer Edition - Art Edit Magazine
Past solo exhibitions:
2021 - Great Southern Land, Bendigo Bank, Bendigo
2022 - Salt of the Earth, Bendigo Bank, Bendigo
2022 - Coast to Coast, Space Gallery, Geelong
2023 - Wild Country, LEDA Gallery, Newcastle
2023 - Handle with care, PheeTheatre, Castlemaine
2024 - Fuelling the Flames, LEDA Gallery, Newcastle
Select Group Show:
2025:
A4 Site eight Gallery, RMIT, Naarm/Melbourne
RMIT Graduate exhibition, RMIT, Naarm/Melbourne
2024:
Finalist - Forty-five Downstairs Emerging Artist Award, Melbourne
Fort Earth, Forty-five Downstairs, Melbourne
Taking up Space, RMIT, Melbourne
2023:
The Other Art Fair, Melbourne
Grammar Art Show, Toowoomba
Market building winter art show, Castlemaine
EGAG WRAP, Bairnsdale
2022:
Over the Horizon group show, The Old Auction House, Kyneton
Grammar Art Show, Toowoomba
Before the fall group show, The Old Auction House, Kyneton
Aspects Art Show, Goondiwindi
The Other Art Fair, Melbourne
Market building winter art show, Castlemaine
Conflux, Bendigo
2021:
Climate Resilience Is Art Exhibition, Bendigo
Market building winter art show, Castlemaine
Central Victorian Landscape Prize, Daylesford
Kathryn and the Bear Petal & Twig group show, Northcote
Market building art show, Summer, Castlemaine
Original artwork available at:
Portia & Co - 34-36 Main Street, Maldon VIC 3463
Leda Gallery - ledagallery.com/collections/melanie-sky