b. 1985 in Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Sydney
Mechelle Bounpraseuth is an artist living and working on unceded Gadigal land, whose practice includes drawing, video, zines and ceramics.
Bounpraseuth uses her work as a way to understand and process the loss of cultural heritage, inherited trauma, childhood memories, and as a way to navigate her own identity. The subject of her artworks are primarily domestic objects and scenarios that depict memories or events found in the past, and how these objects can become “a marker for a point in my life, and a symbol which represents what my childhood was.” Ingrained within the glaze lies a storied past, a sharp contrast to the jubilant initial exterior impression — something mirrored in Bounpraseuth’s creative mindset. Bounpraseuth’s works speak to her practice that centres around the home and the labour within migrant family structures. They look at daily acts of care like the preparation of meals, rubbing tiger balm into tired limbs and peeling fruit from the motherland through the lens of tenderness and love.
Bounpraseuth graduated from the National Art School in 2016 and was awarded the Trudie Alfred Bequest Scholarship. She has since been the recipient of the Highly Commended Prize, Woollahra Small Sculpture; Fishers Ghost Prize for Sculpture and the Macquarie Group Emerging Art Prize. Her artworks have been published in Art Almanac, Art and Australia, The Journal of Australian Ceramics and Art Collector.
Her work is in the Art Bank, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Bendigo Art Gallery, Manly Art Gallery & Museum, National Gallery of Australia and the National Library of Australia collections.
