Melanie Vugich

Melanie’s practice is underpinned by years spent living in Florence, creating gorgeous fabric designs. A childhood dream of becoming an artist led Melanie to Italy, where she completely fell for the Tuscan city of Florence and decided it was where she wanted to live. It became Melanie’s home for 25 years. “In Florence I worked as a fabric designer and was introduced to the city’s dynamic community of artists. In my spare time I travelled throughout Europe, painted as much as possible and held countless solo and joint exhibitions. When it was time to return to Australia, I chose the seaside suburb of Bronte as my base and promised myself I would swim and paint every day. In the years since, I have focused on capturing the wild beauty of nature and sharing my passion for colour, composition and the small but meaningful everyday objects that surround us”. Melanie has recently collaborated with luxury designer clothing brand Oscar De La Renta on their high summer 2022 collection of ready to wear. Melanie’s focus is on still-life and interiors paintings and include Australian flora and favourite objects. Her treasured Italian coffee pot makes a regular appearance, as do vintage teapots, and tablecloths she has gathered over the years, and often includes favourite vases and books. Melanie’s paintings are powerful with a brilliant sense of colour and an instantly recognisable by her striking textual style. Melanie is interested in how items and products can engender comforting emotional responses in a viewer, such as homeliness, pleasure and perhaps nostalgia. Each painting tells a specific story where the painting investigation is through art lineage, contemporary symbolism, and composition, generally referring to the natural world, and contemporary life.