ABOUT
Mel O’Callaghan (she/her), b. 1975 Gadigal Land/ Sydney Mel O’Callaghan is an Australian artist based between France and Australia since 2007. Her practice spans video, sound, painting, performance, and large-scale installation, exploring the body and mind’s capacity to transcend limits, embrace transformation, and connect with forces beyond the human. Central to her work is an investigation into resonance—sonic, vibrational, and mineral—where materials, bodies, and environments act as conduits of energy and memory. Through her use of mineral pigments, geological research, and sound-based performance, O’Callaghan reveals the origins of matter and the vibrational forces that sustain life.
She was laureate of the Prix Carta Bianca in 2024 and the Prix SAM in 2015. In 2026, she will present a solo project atthe Musée d’Art Moderne de Ville de Paris and a monumental performance commissioned by the Sydney Opera House. O’Callaghan’s work invites audiences into experiences of endurance, vulnerability, and communion— with nature, and with each other, and the unseen forces that bind them, from the pulse of the human heart to the resonance of the Earth itself.
O’Callaghan has held exhibitions at leading institutions including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Toronto; Serralves Museum, Porto; Seoul Museum of Art (SEMA); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Institut d’Art Contemporain Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre, NewPlymouth; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Serralves Museum, Porto; Artspace, Sydney; Les Abattoirs Museum – Frac Occitanie Toulouse; Videobrasil Festival, São Paulo; UQ Art Museum, Brisbane; National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne; Esker Foundation, Calgary; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Centro de Arte Santa Monica à Barcelone (CASM); Videobrasil 05 15°, Festival de Arte Contemporânea Sesc Videobrasil, São Paulo; Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers; Carriageworks, Sydney; Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (with Nell); and the 19th Biennale of Sydney.
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