" Harper has developed an impressive oeuvre over the past three decades, producing works of stylish, rhythmic designs and clarity of colour. "
The Darwin-born, Victorian-based Melinda Harper, painter, printmaker, and textile artist, has been exhibiting regularly since the late 1980s in Melbourne (formerly with Pinacotheca, Store 5, and Anna Schwartz Gallery), Sydney (The Olsen Gallery), Brisbane (formerly with Jan Murphy and David Pestorius), as well as in Adelaide and Wellington (NZ). She held solo exhibitions at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (1990), 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne (1992), and in 2015 the Heide Museum of Modern Art hosted the artist’s survey exhibition, ‘Colour Sensation: The Works of Melinda Harper’.
Melinda’s works had been included in a number of important curated group exhibitions, including at the ACCA Melbourne (1986, 2016), MCA Sydney (1996, 1998), AGNSW Sydney (1993, 1995, 1998), Heide MOMA (2002, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2017), Penrith Regional Gallery (2006), TarraWarra Museum of Art (2007), National Gallery of Victoria (2013), as well as in a number of tertiary museums and other collections in Australia and abroad. Her works were included in Heide MOMA’s landmark exhibitions ‘The Legacy of Op Art in Australia’ (2002) and ‘Australian Cubism’ (2009), ‘PRICK!’, surveying embroidery in contemporary art, at the RMIT Melbourne (2025), and in survey exhibitions of Australian Contemporary Non-Objective Art, which toured Germany 2007-2008.
A monograph, with essays by Kirsty Grant, Sue Cramer, Dr Anthony White, and Rebecca Mayo, was published in conjunction with the artist’s survey exhibition at Heide MOMA in 2015.
Melinda was a finalist in the Moet et Chandon Travelling Scholarship (1995), the Redlands Westpac Art Prize (Mosman Art Gallery, 2004), and was a recipient of grants and residencies in Australia and abroad. The artist’s works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Parliament House Canberra, Artbank, Heide MOMA, regional collections in Ararat, Hamilton, Geelong, Mornington, and Gold Coast, numerous tertiary institutions, The Chartwell Trust in Auckland NZ, as well as corporate and private collections in Australia and abroad.