Coastal and Urban

Description

"The design for our mural came about while being influenced by a few things – Frankston as an urban city, Frankston as a coastal city, and the high school student’s creativity with colour and design. After thinking about the duality of the landscape where they attend school, colour and shape was used to express a certain symbolic playfulness. These elements have come together on the wall in coastal pastel hues, alongside an ibis that represents Frankston as an urban centre, and a pelican representing the waterfront and ocean – two birds that people can reflect themselves upon as they dwell in this diverse environment." Melanie Caple. 

Lead Artist: Melanie Caple
Students from Frankston High School.
Facilitating Teacher: Natalie D'ambra

Artist Bio
Melanie graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from RMIT and holds a Masters of Arts Management. As an artist, curator and arts manager, Melanie has worked in multiple capacities within the arts industry.

Over the last decade, she has developed her practice to incorporate finely detailed oil paintings and large-scale exterior murals. Examining our relationship with the botanical world around us and with a focus on immortalising a sense of place, she uses native flora to activate walls and canvases to draw attention to the fragility and vibrancy of our landscape.

Melanie has exhibited in various group exhibitions and has staged solo exhibitions around Melbourne and in Gippsland, including a major solo exhibition in 2015 at the Latrobe Regional Gallery as the recipient of the annual Dick Bishop Memorial Award. Most recently she was a finalist in the 2019 KAAF Art Prize, the Winner of the 2016 People’s Choice Award in the Roi Art Prize, and a finalist in the 2018 Collins Place Art Prize. She was selected as a feature artist in the 2021 Yarram Chalk Art Festival, facilitated a large mural as a part of the 2020 VicHealth funded Girls Own Space program, and her murals can be found across Melbourne and South Gippsland.

Melanie divides her time between Melbourne’s north and her large painting studio in South Gippsland.

Melanie Caple website
Melanie Caple Instagram