Meet the Artist - Gabriela Mello
- Samantha Sederof
- May 1
- 4 min read
Updated: May 9
In these articles I interview artists about their life and art practice, finding artists you may be unfamiliar with, and hoping to answer the question why does art matter?
Our artist today, Gabriela Mello is the Owner and Director of Warrandyte Pottery as well as an Art Therapist and Artist currently based in Warrandyte, Australia, she describes her practice...
"My arts practice is rooted in craft-based modalities and grounded in a co-creative relationship between myself, material, place, and the socio-political landscapes I move within. Clay is my primary medium, but I frequently work across modalities—fibre arts, wet felting, embroidery, weaving, and more recently, woodwork. I hold an emergent, process-led approach, where each work evolves slowly, revisited over time until it reaches a sense of felt completion. My practice is relational, intuitive, and informed by embodied knowing. It is both a reflective and generative space where personal, communal, and environmental narratives intertwine through material engagement."
When did you first notice yourself being creative?
Creative expression has always been central to how I relate to the world. Even in my early career as an early childhood educator, I was drawn to creative and relational approaches to learning and connection. Creativity was not confined to art-making—it was present in how I observed, listened, played, and responded. Over time, I began to recognise the arts as a primary language of meaning-making in both my personal and professional life.
What materials are you drawn to?
I’m drawn to tactile, responsive materials—clay, wool, thread—materials that invite a kind of somatic dialogue. My hands become the primary site of communication, and through this embodied interaction, meaning and memory are accessed. These materials hold a language of their own, and I find they mirror the slowness, fluidity, and sensitivity I value in my practice. There’s a sense of returning, again and again, to these modalities because they offer spaciousness and intuitive freedom.
What kinds of things/places/people inspire you to make an artwork?
I’m inspired by the everyday moments of rupture or resonance—conversations, landscapes, shifts in my internal world, mothering, migration, community, memory. Place and material are central, but so too are questions of belonging, displacement, and relationality. My work is deeply influenced by the spaces I inhabit and the people I encounter. Often, inspiration is not a singular event but emerges gradually through sustained engagement, reflection, and being-with.These inspirations are often filtered through the lens of my embodied experience, which guides my creative process. I draw upon the co-creative potential of place and context, allowing these elements to inform the work as it emerges.
Are you inspired by the art making process or by using a conceptual framework?Both. My creative process is an embodied way of knowing—it often leads me toward meaning rather than stemming from it. However, I hold an emergent conceptual framework rooted in my values, research, and lived experience. It acts as a scaffold, supporting and informing my choices as I make. Sometimes a memory, emotion, or image initiates a piece, but the process often reshapes it. My framework is relational, informed by critical reflection, and allows me to make sense of the work in a broader personal, cultural, and therapeutic context.
Do you work alone or with others? And how do you find this experience?
Primarily, I work alone. My arts practice offers vital solitude—especially amidst a life filled with community work, relational demands, and motherhood. However, collaboration is also part of my broader ecosystem. I support other artists and often make alongside them. I also create and research alongside a group of MEICAT Masters graduates, we have formed a research/inquiry collective (TABI Collective), where we meet fortnightly to explore studio-based arts therapy research together. These communal spaces provide a different kind of nourishment—deepening my inquiry through dialogue and shared creativity.
Where do you work?
I work from a small studio in my backyard and also out of Warrandyte Pottery Studio, where I teach and support emerging and established artists. Both spaces are integral to my practice—the home studio allows for solitude and slow engagement, while the pottery studio brings connection, learning, and dialogue.
What are you making at the moment?
I’m continuing work on my arts-based research project, originally developed through my master’s thesis. It’s a critical auto-ethnographic inquiry into belonging as an immigrant, primarily expressed through clay, but incorporating wet felting and embroidery. I’ve been invited to present this work at the upcoming Ceramics Triennale in Fremantle, which has reactivated this project. I’m also co-creating with my TABI Collective research group from MEICAT—creating space for and researching collective studio inquiry into the therapeutic dimensions of creative arts practice.
Who are artists you admire?
There are many, but I particularly admire those whose work deeply engages with process, materials, and the exploration of identity and culture. I am drawn to artists whose practices are socially engaged, who push boundaries, and who create in ways that are attuned to the human experience. Ben Quilty, Sharon Griffin, Shell (Createsharerepeat), Emily Counts, Vipoo, Yoko Ozaw, David Whyte, Anne Carson, Wole Soyinka, Sam Gilliam, Pope L, Firelei Baez Israel Kislansky, Madeleine Thornton-Smith and all of my students, to name a few.
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