Don’t Be Such a Girl series, 2021

Don't be such a girl! Dumb, stupid, sensitive, fearful, fragile, feminine, emotional, precious, pathetic, weak and useless.   In front of me is a photograph. I am 5 years old and surrounded by my brother and cousins. I am the only one looking into the camera. I

Mending Broken Boundaries series, 2019-2020

For 20 years Melanie Dare has explored personal narrative. Most recently unraveling some of the threads which form her story. At the start of this body of artwork she had a major operation, then later another. Both times the wound was packed with gauze as

Cultivation of the Pearl series, 2020

  To culture a pearl a mollusc is traumatised so it forms a hard barrier in order to survive - the pearl.  The process begins by inserting a foreign body into it's flesh. Over years the numerous layers of protection increase and a pearl is formed

Remembering, 2019

The starting point for her current work began 2013 in the Czech Republic when the artist revisited her mother’s homeland in Czech Republic. This particular artwork “Remembering” is heavily influenced by her participation in a Finnish residency at Arteles Creative Center called Silence Awareness Existence

Thawed, 2019

Thaw is a response to participating in the Silence Awareness Existence residency at Arteles Creative Creatre, Finland early 2018.   "Held during the Northern winter in the middle of the Finnish countryside I felt the snow covered land resonate with me in a profound way. I have

I was reading, 2017

    Exhibited in the annual group exhibition Scene at  Nyisztor Gallery 13 - 27 August 2017      

Endings are Beginnings, 2017

    Selected for the Mid West Art Prize 2017 at Geraldton Regional Art Prize - Geraldton, Western Australia.  17 - 31 July 2017

Horizons of the past, 2017

    Exhibited in the Royal Perth Art Prize 2017 at Wilkinson Gallery - Claremont, Western Australia.  19 -30 September 2017.

Woven past, 2017

    An image produced by Mel Dare for A Portrait of Taiwan in Perth project in which 20 Taiwanese and 20 Perth artists - all women - collaborate in a cultural exchange.  Dare was one of 20 artists invited to participate in this  project curated by Ashley

Sometimes I feel, 2017

    Commissioned for the Joondalup Invitational Art Award 2017.  15 -28 October 2017 at Lakeside Centre - Joondalup, WA.