Anne-Mie Melis
Pontypridd
Visual Artist and Educator based in Wales
Links
Anne-Mie Melis work explores organisms and their role in an increasingly technology-infiltrated world. Her work explores science, art, natural creation and human interference. She combines drawing, sculpture, photography and moving images in conceptual installations that ignite our senses and question the interaction between our current environment and how we as humans relate to it. She uses a variety of media; large-scale architectural botanical drawings, assembled objects, plant parts or pruned shrubs, dried plant specimens, stop motion animations, film and photographs. Her large-scale drawings are embedded in the tradition of botany, but a contemporary visual language is used. Some of her photographs refer to plant remnants of a future nature, visualizing a new world with man-tailored organisms. Playful, but also disturbing, her recreated artificial creatures show new qualities and actions different from natural occurring organisms. The animations are the results of a visual research into movement, growth development and evolutionary changes of plants reacting to our future environment. Her latest work increasingly incorporates interactive elements. She invites the public to share her naïve attempts to establish change to our behavior, thus exploring art as a possible tool for its potential to instigate social and environmental change. Running outreach projects for people of different ages and backgrounds is an integrated part of Melis practice.
Qualifications and training
1985 - 1988 - National Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium
1981 -1985 - HKO Painting, Karel de Grote-Hogeschool Antwerpen, Belgium
1981 - BA Arts Education, Heilig Graf Institute, Turnhout, Belgium
Residencies and awards
2014 - Research and Development Award supported by Arts Council Wales, Artist in Residence at PDR, International Centre for Product Design and Research, Cardiff Metropolitan University
2013 - Research Residency Artist, Duke’s Wood Project, Ordinary Culture, Nottingham
2012 - Hybrid, Peter Hulsmans & Anne-Mie Melis, Artist in Residence in Lokaal 01, Antwerp, Belgium
2010 - 2011 - Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residency Award, Cardiff School of Bioscience, University of Cardiff
2010 - Arts Council England selected Escalator Artist
2009 - Individual Grants for the Arts Award, Arts Council England, Eastern Region
2009 - Artist in Residence, Addenbrooks Hospital Cambridge, outreach project in collaboration with Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination
Exhibitions
2015 - flora, Oriel Davies Gallery and touring, Newtown, Powys
2014 - Underground, Cefn Coed Colliery Museum, Crynant near Neath, South Wales Valleys
2013 - Dukes Wood Project, Ordinary Culture, Dukes Wood Reserve, Eakring, Nottingham
2013 - Colony 13 Cardigan, Bridge Warehouse, Teifi Wharf, Cardigan
2012 - Feeling the Pressure, Rhyl Library, Museum & Arts Centre, Rhyl, North Wales
2012 - Intersections, Science in Contemporary Art, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
2012 - Rhôd 2012, An Urban/Rural Dialogue, Melin Glonc, Drefelin, West Wales
2011 - Invisible Dust, Cambridge Science Festival, Jesus Green Lido, Cambridge
2011 - Jerwood Encounters: TERRA, Jerwood Visual Arts, London, and touring to Grizedale Forest, Hawkshead, Cumbria
2011 - Are your Petunias actually transgenic?, Test Bed, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Powys
2011 - The Late Shift, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, The Forum, Norwich
2010 - Miniscule, Oblong Gallery, London
2010 - Suffolk Showcase 2010, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, Suffolk
2010 - The Late Shift, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich
2009 - Animated, Wysing Arts Contemporaries, Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, Cambridgeshire
2009 - The New Botanists, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff
2008 - Kettle's Yard Open 2008, Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge
2006 - Watch My Garden Grow, solo exhibition, The Meunier House, Caldecote, Cambridge
1999 - Galerij DeGriffioen, Sint-Gillis, Belgium
1999 - CCRix, ‘Marieke Pauwels / Anne-Mie Melis’, Deurne-Antwerp, Belgium
1997 - Stadsfeestzaal, Antwerp, Belgium
1996 - Cultureel Centrum Berchem, Antwerp, Belgium
1996 - Closed Circuit, solo exhibition, Bernarduscentrum, Antwerp, Belgium
1991 - Stadsfeestzaal, Antwerp, Belgium
1989 - Iritis, Flux introduces Young Belgian Artists, De Beweeging, Antwerp, Belgium
1989 - Barbaro89, SpazioUno, Firenze, Italy
1989 - Kapelgalerie, solo exhibition, Sint Maria, Antwerp, Belgium
1988 - Akademiegalerij, solo exhibition, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium
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