Melanie Schoeniger is a photographer from Bavaria, Germany, interested in capturing the beauty of nature. Melanie creates botanical photomontages that blend ancestral artistic techniques and modern digital media and merge manufactured and organic matter. The resulting works cleverly explore themes of endurance, interconnectedness, and ripples of human history and nature through time.
Early Career and Influences
Born in 1977 and raised in South Bavaria, near the Alps, Melanie studied in Munich and graduated with honours in Media Design in 1999. She then worked as an art director, overseeing various projects from small print designs to the digital CI of large scale corporations, including Allianz. A strong influence in Melanie's work is Ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock print art. Ukiyo-e, which translates as pictures of the floating world, explores the transitory nature of life with an attitude of hedonism and transgression. Traits of Japanese Edo art (1615-1868), such as playful asymmetry, flat and unshaded colours, and creative and unpredictable cropping, can be seen in Melanie's works. In doing so, her collage-like digital series possess a curious depth due to their many layers of perception.
Melanie Schoeniger's Mission
Melanie attempts to catch a glimpse of our inherent interconnectedness with the earth. Her floral and leaf works, at once spiritual and activist, both celebrate the abundance of life that nature provides and highlight the alarming loss of biodiversity due to human intervention. The artist sincerely believes in the transformative power of art and hopes that her works can evoke and ignite a deep wish in viewers to protect and preserve nature for future generations. Melanie often donates proceeds from her works to causes supporting environmental protection.
Awards and Honourable Mentions
Melanie received First Place in the Environmental category at the Chromatic Awards 2021. The artist also attained four honourable mentions at the IPA International Photography Awards 2021, selected from more than 14,000 entries. Melanie has exhibited at The Curators Salon by Gita Joshi and within the Secret Garden group show at Landing Contemporary Art, a nomadic contemporary art gallery. Art Seen Magazine has published Melanie's work.
