Danie Mellor’s work might well be about the sentiment of time travel, indeed about the crossing of culture itself. He seems to fuse various notions of a cultural memory within the possibilities of a national psyche. Yet within all these processes he carefully regards various facets of cultural material alongside obvious artistic materials- ceramics, graphite, metal, fur.

In previous works, old metal, colonial travel trunks became a strong metaphor for crossing over into new lands. Accordingly, Danie transformed these into shields, into ceramic replicas, into maps and way-finders. More recently he constructs mixed –media and ceramic forms based on the loaded cultural symbols of boomerangs, kangaroos and assorted Exotica-Australiana. These images oscillate between celebrations of collective histories and a sense of place, whilst simultaneously mythologising the inevitable pangs of separation and displacement. Well on his way in becoming one the most exciting and widely collected emerging artists in the country, Danie Mellor continues to explore these ideas with meticulous fascination - employing craftsmanship and humour amidst an intelligent and wry undercurrent of social commentary.

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