Recently she was awarded first prize in the Complexity 2020 exhibition.

Just 15 'complex' weavers from across the USA, Canada, UK and Australia were accepted into the exhibition.

Just getting into the exhibition was an achievement for Melanie.

"I was stunned because I was up against a lot of other exceptional weavers worldwide. I was incredibly proud."

She also received the Complex Weaver's Award for excellence in design and execution.

The awards were for her piece of three-dimensional handwoven cloth.

The exhibition is a biennial event held by Complex Weavers organisation based in the United States.

"There are very few international weaving-specific awards, so winning this award is an enormous honour for me."

The award-winning piece uses hand-dyed monofilament threads about as fine as a human hair in the warp (lengthwise threads), and silk and stainless steel in the weft (width-wise threads).

The winning piece explores a hexagonal tessellation in different planes of the cloth.

It is woven in multiple layers, much like origami is folded, and springs to life after being taken off the loom.

The physical exhibition Complexity 2020 in the USA was cancelled due to the pandemic and became an online exhibition.

Melanie said there both positives and negatives to the online exhibition.

"It's very different when you can walk around it. The perspective changes quite a lot. Moving around it you get a better idea of it," she said.

"But being online a lot of other people can see it which is quite nice."

Between 2004 and 2012, Melanie was weaver in residence at Sturt and still has work for sale there.

While she is mainly self-taught in weaving, Melanie also studied in Italy and received her BA (textiles) with first class honours at ANU in 2002.

Melanie weaves manually on her computer-controlled loom at her Canberra studio.

"I make cloth that is time consuming to weave and I appreciate that it is difficult even for industrial machines.

"I enjoy the hand weaving aspects that can't be done easily industrially. I'm creating something that's not mass produced and is unique."

Melanie considers producing handwoven fabric of this type to be quite meditative, and even five to 10 centimetres in one day to be a good result.

While it may be slow going at times, she said the result was always interesting.

"You're always curious to see how the next part is going to interact.

"With weaving you do a lot of thinking and planning beforehand. You plan it all out meticulously and when you're on the loom try your idea and then experiment with modifications."

Melanie said she would be part of a group exhibition in Melbourne later this year.

She also plans to exhibit work when the Australian branch of Complex Weavers holds an exhibition in Canberra next year.

Visit http://complexityexhibition.org/ to view the Complexity 2020 exhibition until 1 September 2020.

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