Following the birth of my daughter over a decade ago, Taper found the genesis of her work constrained by domestic borders. Lacking both time and space to make physical work, she turned to lens and screen: making digital, photographic works that manifested themselves in versions of the memorabilia, fabrics and domestic objects of a home; works that reference family photos, clothing, household objects and linens. Taper refers to this body of works by the umbrella label of ‘Domestic Use Only’: loaded with implicit ambivalence regarding her place as an artist in both the home and the wider world. ​
​
Today, my interdisciplinary practice sits uneasily at the intersection of trad and new media. Often working with digital photography as a raw material, I am increasingly interested in how digital and lens-based works manifest themselves in the world: challenging traditional boundaries of representation and demanding to be able to work outside any single ‘maker definition’, making works that don’t much care about accepted definitions of photography, sculpture, drawing or moving image. Process and subject matter are inextricably interlinked; the former increasingly serves as metaphor for the latter - or becomes the subject itself..

Mellony Taper is a UK-based artist. Current and recent exhibitions include the Royal West of England Academy Open #171; the Bath Open Art Prize 2024; the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Prize 2024; East Quay Open 2024; Evolver Prize 2024; “Found Cities, Lost Objects: Women in the City” curated by Lubaina Himid MBE at RWA Bristol, 2023; the RWA Photo Open 2023; and ProCreate Project’s Public Activations at Lewisham Shopping Centre, 2023. She became an Academician of the South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts in 2024.
​
​Following the birth of her daughter a decade ago, Taper found the genesis of her work constrained by domestic borders. Lacking both time and space to make physical work, she turned to lens and screen: making digital, photographic works that manifested themselves in versions of the memorabilia, fabrics and domestic objects of a home; works that reference family photos, clothing, household objects and linens. Taper refers to this body of works by the umbrella label of ‘Domestic Use Only’: loaded with implicit ambivalence regarding her place as an artist in both the home and the wider world. ​
​
Today, Taper’s interdisciplinary practice sits uneasily at the intersection of trad and new media. Often working with digital photography as a raw material, she is increasingly interested in how digital and lens-based works manifest themselves in the world: challenging traditional boundaries of representation and demanding to be able to work outside any single ‘maker definition’, making works that don’t much care about accepted definitions of photography, sculpture, drawing or moving image.
 

Mellony Taper trained as a sculptor under the tutelage of Keir Smith, Denise de Cordova etal at Wimbledon School of Art (now UAL) when it was still the last remaining independent of the historic London art schools. She graduated in 1998. Even then, her work was multidisciplinary, boundary crossing and ambivalent to definition: challenging what makes  ‘a drawing’ or ‘a sculpture’ - undercurrents that still permeate and inform her practice today.

​​​​Taper has been instrumental in the artistic and strategic development of ArtPort - a multi-event, multi-arts annual festival on the North Somerset coast, near Bristol. In the role Taper has commissioned and curated original film, art installations, exhibitions and events, including commissioning the #Portisfield ‘Field’ installation by Hamish Young RWA MRSS and co-producing  ‘ArtStories’, a series of original documentary films about the artists who live and work in the west of England with award-winning director Barry Wilkinson.