Melissa Harvey
Between the intimacy of handmade paper and the visual intensity of public space, Harvey transforms clothing gifted by members of her community through a physical process of breaking down, beating and reforming the fibres. Embedded within each surface are traces of previous use, personal connection and collective experience. Harvey’s work in public environments informs her sensitivity to the built world: its layered surfaces, shifting light, accumulated markings and competing visual signals. In Under My Skin, the handmade paper becomes a receptive field for these observations, with sprayed gestures overlapping like fragments of architecture, passing shadows or marks encountered in the street. Layers of colour and interrupted forms generate a sense of vibration, as though energy is moving beneath the surface. This visual noise is balanced by the slower labour of papermaking, bringing immediacy and duration into the same object. The works become records of movement and feeling, shaped by the body, the city and the communities from which their materials originate. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Printmaking from Southern Cross University and a Master of Visual Arts from the Sydney College of the Arts. In 2024, MJ was awarded an artist residency at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, USA. They were also a finalist in the Burnie Art Prize and presented a solo exhibition at the Print Council of Australia Gallery in Melbourne in 2025.
Artworks
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