Biography

From her beginnings and fine art education in southern Ontario to the home in the North she chose, Meshell Melvin has fashioned a professional art practice that spans thirty years. Her images reflect an interest in her community and the natural world around them. Meshell’s strongest relationship is with textile, a medium that she shares with a rare industrial chain-stitch embroiderer. Together, in an act of public portraiture they have performed at Yukon festivals, and as a member of the cultural team representing the North at the Vancouver Olympics. For a number of years, she independently studied animation and produced two short animated films. She has exhibited widely. Her work hangs in private and public collections, and has been featured in print, radio, television and is the subject of three short documentary films. Meshell’s commitment to art education parallels her devotion to her practice, and takes her on artmaking adventures across the territory.


She is honoured to live and work on the Traditional Territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.