Melanie Stidolph

Melanie’s work has explored her own and others experience of longing for children. Awarded an ACE grant for The next dawn, the next spring (2023) made with women struggling to conceive or childless not by choice. Commissioned by Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange as part of the exhibition We are floating in space.

Her crowdfunded photo book Endless Reproduction (2022) draws parallels with her experiences of trying to conceive and photographic failures. Automatic triggers fire the shutter, set off by the natural world and inanimate objects. The book was launched in London at The Photographers’ Gallery, featured in The Guardian and selected for Exeter Contemporary Open (2022).

‘As open as she is about her personal circumstances, at times, Stidolph pointedly subtracts herself from the work. Even the act of pressing the shutter feels too personal, too deliberate, too charged, too active.’
‘A body, in parts, interjects’, Lizzie Lloyd, Synesthesia, 2021

The photo series Last Summer (2017-) photographs strangers with young children at the sea in New Zealand and Cornwall. The work was featured in the ACE funded solo show As it is seen at Grays Wharf gallery (2022), selected for the RWA Photo Open (2023) and Manchester Contemporary (2024).

Still, held (2024) is an installation commissioned by Hospital Rooms for a mental health ward in Redruth. Influenced by time spent with patients and inspired by the work of Tove Janssen.  An accompanying publication for the project features the 13 artists including Chantal Joffe and Janet Holland with essays by Martin Holman.

She curated the Tate St Ives (M)otherhood: Art & Life event (2023), and was invited by curator Hettie Judah to co-programme a conference with artist Sally Butcher, sharing experiences of grief and loss around motherhood at MAC, Birmingham alongside Hettie’s major touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood (2024).

Melanie has a First Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art from The University of Leeds and MFA from The University of British Columbia. Her studies in Canada were supported by a Travelling Scholarship from The Leverhulme Trust. She has lived in Cornwall since 2015.