Mel STREATER
Local Indigenous artist Mel Streater is a descendant of the Wiradjuri Nation calling the beautiful seaside town of Guruk (Port Macquarie) on Birpai Country her home.
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i Mel. It is such a pleasure to speak with you. Your inspiring work holds such connection to Country evoking emotion from your imagery. Tell us a little about yourself as an artist. Yiradhu Marang! (That’s “G’Day!” in Wiradjuri speak). These days my art is mostly reflective of the natural environment, or a comment on what is happening in the world around me – Country, culture, place. I paint from experience and the moments and feelings I hold deeply are what naturally appear when putting brush to canvas or pen to paper. I understand your love of art developed at a young age, watching your Dad paint and sculpt, and as you grew you also realised your own drive for artistically creating beautiful moments. How did your Dad first inspire you and how have 18 GREATER PORT MACQUARIE
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his teachings shaped you today? and then, when the story comes to you, you I’ve painted and drawn for as long as I will know it’s time to translate that into the can remember. My Dad, Jeff, is an artist so I physical form. The longer I sit with my Dad, was always picking up his brushes and trying and with my cultural Aunties and Uncles, and to emulate what he the longer I sit with was doing. When Country and listen to I was very young, I her story, the more their When I was remember sitting on messages begin to fuse very young, I the lounge room floor and embed within my remember sitting on of our Telegraph Point spirit – this is when the the lounge room floor home watching Dad stories come. of our Telegraph paint for hours on end. You hold a Bachelor Point home watching I was so impressed of Creative Arts and Dad paint for hours by his focus and Design majoring on end. mesmerised by how in Graphic Design he could transform from Charles Sturt blank canvas into University and such beautiful stories. certificates in Cultural Years ago, I asked him why he doesn’t paint Arts. How was this process? What more, to which he replied, “I only paint when did you gain from a greater depth of the stories come to me.” He explained that understanding of Indigenous culture? our art isn’t just about the pretty picture. I’ve tried so many things since finishing It’s about listening, watching, experiencing, school in 2006. I floated around Sydney for a