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Meli Axford is a painter based in Northern NSW whose figurative paintings explore themes of safety, belonging, and visibility for women and girls. Before becoming an artist, she spent more than two decades working in technology and product design.

Meli's creative practice emerged alongside a profound period of personal growth. After years of struggling with anxiety, emotional reactivity, and patterns she did not fully understand, Meli began exploring neuroscience, emotional regulation, and personal development. Through painting, she discovered a powerful way to access and understand her inner world. Art became a tool for self-discovery.

Today, Meli's work reflects a belief that people can change, heal, and create lives that better align with who they truly are.

Follow Meli on Instagram and check out her website.

My work constructs environments where girls are held, visible, and able to fully occupy space. My daughters, Lily and Mia, sit at the centre of this practice. Through painting, I place them within worlds deliberately shaped to support them - physically, emotionally, and without apology.

The swimming pool operates as both architecture and metaphor: bright, protective, open yet secure. The figures are rendered with realism and care, while the landscape moves towards abstraction because we don't live in that world - yet!