Melanie Irwin merges sculpture and drawing with performance art to explore the ways in which we construct and inhabit geometric space.

Recent projects have incorporated oversized balloons, stretch textile membranes and modified metal structures. These envelopes and appendages are pieced together to generate strange amorphous entities that might be propped up on stilts, or wandering around a gallery space. In works that are variously seductive, absurd, comical, or pathetic, the human body’s capacity for elastic adaptability in response to demanding and constrictive circumstances is emphasized and celebrated.

Irwin completed her Masters of Fine Art by research at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne in 2013. She has exhibited and performed widely since 2006, including solo exhibitions at West Space (2015) and Heide Museum of Modern Art (2014). Group projects have included exhibitions in Warsaw and Rotterdam and residencies, performances and exhibitions in Berlin and Chengdu. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including funding from the Australia Council, Creative Victoria, and the City of Melbourne, and an Ian Potter Cultural Trust grant, which supported her participation in the PICTURE BERLIN residency in 2013. Irwin is a founding member of the artist collective Light and Air and Space and Time (LAST).