Woody Mellor is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Naarm (Melbourne). In 2012, Woody graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Hons) from Curtin University, Western Australia. Following his acceptance to the MA Painting program at the Royal College of Art in 2014, Woody lived and exhibited in London—including residencies in Ireland and Finland—until his return to Australia in 2020.

Drawing often explicitly from a wide range of influences—stage traditions, literature, opera, film and popular culture—Woody Mellor’s paintings are imbued with the theatricality and whimsey of an otherwise, highly performative practice. With a history of painting backdrops and stage sets for his own live performances and moving image projects, Mellor’s current practice moves away from simply utilising painting as a ‘part of the whole’, while still honouring his enduring interest in stage and dramatic storytelling.

Layered with his own awkward dependence on pop-cultural references as a sort of social prosthesis, Woody utilises the economy of these ‘communal memories’ as he invites you to follow a tenuous thread that connects seemingly unrelated events and coincidences, collaging references and personal histories into an elaborate web of new and ‘known’.