[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 sculptureet 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 Kiosque de Cam.

21 September, 6pm — 8pm 
Galerie de la rue St Heliers

Opening hours

Monday – Saturday, 8am — 11pm
Dimanche, de 15h à 21h

A propos de

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.

Accessibilité

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

St Heliers Street Gallery is accessible en fauteuil roulant.

Diversité des genres est la bienvenue au Couvent, et les clients peuvent utiliser les toilettes qui correspondent à leur identité ou expression de genre. Il existe sexué des toilettes à proximité du site et sans distinction de sexe toilettes disponibles dans d'autres lieux de l'enceinte du Couvent. Voir les Plan des toilettes publiques pour trouver la salle de bain de votre choix.