Melanie Jordan is based in rural Kent in the south of England. Her art practice is very tactile and haptic, with thread based crafts at its core. She is an active member of the arts organisation ArtCan, and was selected for The New Platform Art Professional Development Programme for artists, 2022. She has exhibited throughout the UK and internationally, including; ArtCan’s ‘Vienna Calling’ exhibition, ‘Supermarket Art Fair’ in Stockholm, and at The Prenzlauer Studio in Berlin. Her work has also been shown at Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate. She was awarded an MA in Fine Art from The University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury in 2020.
Melanie Jordan has a textural, haptic practice with thread-based hand crafts at its core. Such slow repetitive activities allow for reflective thought, being absorbing almost to the point of monotony. It is as though the boredom is a precursor to creativity. The process of making is embedded in Melanie’s work, and for her is as important as the outcome.
Melanie’s artwork pays attention to maternal ambivalence; the tension between the need to nurture, and feelings of entrapment in motherhood. Her work is informed by her personal perspective of being a mother of an adult with a learning disability, where the mother-child relationship becomes stuck in a dependent phase. Despite caring very much for her adult child, and wanting to support him through his journey to become a more independent adult, for such a mother there is an inner longing for a loosening of these maternal ties. A longing that is often accompanied by a sense of shame.