[Past Event] Midnight in the Garden

Midnight in the Garden is an exhibition of new works by artist, activist, and computer programmer Melanie Thewlis.

Embracing generative AI technologies and traversing oil painting, textile sculpture, and creative coding, the exhibition is a cathartic whirlwind of surrealist works depicting our beautiful and broken dystopia.

After an eight year sojourn in Berlin and Warsaw, Melanie returned home to Naarm/Melbourne in 2018. The following years of bushfires, new motherhood, and pandemic brought a reckoning with the shame and anguish of environmental degradation and colonial legacy.

Melanie has grappled with finding a visual and symbolic language that speaks to her deep feelings of moral compromise, climate grief, alienation from the natural world, and the overwhelming scale and reach of capital.

The resulting works are a discomfiting blend of beauty and sorrow, inviting meditation on the deep sense of unease about our place in the world that many of us carry within.

Opening event

Come along, view the works, and meet the artist while enjoying some light refreshments from Cam’s Kiosk.

21 September, 6pm — 8pm 
St Heliers Street Gallery

Opening hours

Monday – Saturday, 8am — 11pm
Sunday, 3pm — 9pm

About

Melanie Thewlis is an artist, activist, and computer programmer. She has worked as an ally, advocate, campaigner, and teacher for environmental groups, Aboriginal peoples, Syrian refugees, and women in tech. She works in media ranging from surrealist paintings through textiles, internet of things, and theatre, to interactive projections and online data visualisations. Her work has explored playful connections in public space, power structures in tech capitalism, gender identity, and a fraught relationship to the natural world. She has exhibited in Germany, Austria, Greece, and Australia.

Accessibility

Image descriptions are available at this exhibition via a QR code.

St Heliers Street Gallery is wheelchair accessible.

Gender diversity is welcome at the Convent, and patrons are welcome to use any restroom that matches their gender identity or expression. There are gendered toilets available close to the venue and gender-neutral toilets available in other locations within the Convent precinct. View the Public Toilet Map to find a bathroom of your preference.