LUST
FOR LIFE
14 – 23 FEBRUARY
83 High Street, Prahran VIC 3181
Biography
Mel Hartigan
Mel Hartigan is an emerging multidisciplinary artist living and working on the unceded lands of Naarm / Melbourne, Australia. Hartigan’s practice includes sculpture, printmaking, illustration and animation.
Hartigan’s art is centred on visual storytelling using hybrid grotesques. Narratives are subdermal and invite interpretation, tethering deeply personal experiences, feelings or societal observations.
Hartigan enlists an unwilling cast of birds, reptiles, insects or mammals and labours these innocent creatures with human imperfections. Creatures often exist in negative space, are abstracted or morphed into humiliating scenarios, or are posed in a manner that suggests discomfort.
Food, flora, and other intrusions are introduced, compounding a voyeuristic unease between the enticing and the off-putting, or as Hartigan describes, the “aww” and the “eww”.
Using a handmade aesthetic and playing in the realm between highbrow and lowbrow, Hartigan derives inspiration from Western art history, satire, movie props, theme parks, animation, biology and psychology.
Hartigan was a recipient of the National Gallery Trustees Award, has exhibited work in the Beinart Gallery, was selected for solo exhibition in Mailbox Art Space, and sponsorship by Baldessin Press Studio. Hartigan is also an arts professional with over a decade of experience in Museum programming.
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Works
Wiederholungszwang I 2026. Etching and drawing US 1/7. 835mm x 635mm
Wiederholungszwang II 2026. Etching and drawing US 2/7. 835mm x 635mm (framed)
Proudly Supported by:
NotFair Art Foundation
info@notfair.com.au