Instagram story viewer> @melanie.billark> Posts

Melanie Billark

@melanie.billark

1.7K

followers

4530

following

Award winning environmental artist working in public spaces
Reclaimed materials • Community • Slow Ecologies
📍Toronto
Art Education-> @studioarts_to

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

“What’s Mine is Yours”
2022
@gibraltarpointto taken in Toronto Islands by @melanie.billark

104

3

4 years ago

This is “Comma” part of a permenant collection @crowncrp !

This is on display just in time for Earth Month! You can go see it in their lobby at 400 University Ave!

Thanks so much to Monica and her team for being so wonderful to work with and inviting my work into their space!

@kylaincreation at @artscapeto for making all of this happen seamlessly!

@plastechonline for the amazing pre-fab work!

@moss.acres for the stunning living preserved mosses

@izbestbro for always being my number one fan and major help always

@grace.a.wardlaw for helping me slay the flora design and aesthetics 🙏

@jessrysyk for my plastic sealing help! 💕

And all my friends and fam for the amazing support. It honestly takes a village and I couldn’t have done it without this crew helping out! 💕😘 taken in 400 University Avenue by @melanie.billark

197

26

4 years ago

Luminato part II 🥰 by @melanie.billark

76

1

4 years ago

Throwback to an oldie but a goldie.

Reshared from• @xpacecc A detail of Melanie Billark's Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better, opening tonight in the Window Space from 7-10pm

#ecoartist #torontoartist #artandecology by @melanie.billark

11

0

4 days ago

On this day five years ago when the world was shut down my husband, our dog Nobu and I drove across Canada to do an artist residency on Vancouver island @studiohcanada .

I only arrived with hand tools and my @air.ink (pollution) markers. I created this sculptural textile titled "sea cycle" made from found Objects, Upcycled Thrift Items, Air Ink Pollution Markers, and Naturally hand dyed fabrics.

This work was apart of my personal collection but it's time to let her go to a forever home! Sea Cycle is currently for sale, please visit my shop in my bio or DM me to inquire!

#candianartist #foundobjects #ecoart by @melanie.billark

18

2

18 days ago

This spring and summer has had its share of high highs and low lows. A lot of these two seasons have been filled with layers of grief, reflection, change and growth.

This is a clip of a performance work I made for my grandma reflecting our journey with dementia/ Alzheimer's that was made during my residency in France @chateau_orquevaux but somehow also encapsulates my current state as well. I've been really reflecting on impermanence vs permanence within my work and life, contemplating what it means to leave an imprint both physically and metaphorically.

This month is also Alzheimer's awareness month and felt like a good moment to go back to this footage, to feel, let go, recentre myself and start the process of healing again, which also aligns with the harvest full moon today.

What I've learned about grief over these last few months is that it can be sudden, it can come in waves, it can be about a single moment or person, multiple versions of one person, feeling for others and gaining more compassion, more self reflection, and constantly coming back from the past to the present.

So here's to me balling my eyes out in the rain in France, fully feeling, fully letting go, and starting the process of healing and finding a new version of myself once again.

Hug your babies, snuggle your pets, reach out to your friends, your family and spend time on the people that really uplift you this season.

Here's to feeling, growing, reflecting, letting go and rebuilding.. 🌈🌈

#grief #alzheimers #healing #waitingforournextdoublerainbow by @melanie.billark

42

13

21 days ago

Two years ago today I installed "Comma" at 400 University Ave 🌱

One of my favourites to this day 💚

I'm always in search of more public art, collaborative installation's and private customizable collections! Have something in mind send me an email I'd love to hear about it melanie@billark.com !

#artist #ecoartist #sculpture taken in Toronto, Ontario by @melanie.billark

26

3

a year ago

There's nothing like this feeling, take me back to this gorgeous space surrounded by these talented, creative and supportive artists✨

Forever greatful for this experience at @chateau_orquevaux 💕

#artistresidency #internationalart #installationart taken in Chateau Orquevaux by @melanie.billark

36

3

4 months ago

Welcome to "Traces of Us" - A temporary body of work exploring presence, memory, and what remains.

This body of work explores the quiet tension between human presence and the enduring rhythms of the natural world. Through sculpture and installation, I consider what it means to leave a trace—physically, emotionally, and environmentally—and how those traces are slowly
softened, altered, or reclaimed over time.
Rooted in personal memory, this work is shaped by my relationship with my grandmother and her experience with dementia. As memory shifts and dissolves, presence becomes fleeting, held only in fragments through touch, place, and repetition. These ideas are translated through
materials and processes that embrace impermanence linked to weather, time, growth and participation.

Using upcycled fabrics, found stones and natural elements each piece exists in collaboration
with the land. Human intervention is present, but not fixed. Instead, it is invited to change, to fade, to be reshaped and eventually to return to the earth.

Together, the works form a series of quiet encounters. They ask the viewer to slow down, to notice their body in space and to reflect on what remains after we have passed through.

Stay tuned for one more permanent installation footage and so much content of this incredible space and experience. Forever grateful for @beulahvanrensburg and Ziggy for allowing us into their beautiful vision and dream and providing the freedom for me to fully express myself. I'm forever grateful for this space, place and support from all the staff, resident artists and everyone who touched my life and was part of my experience here.

This one's for you Betty, for us 💙
#dimentiaawareness #artistjourney #healingthroughart taken in Chateau Orquevaux by @melanie.billark

82

18

6 months ago

"Through Her Eyes" is part of Château d'Orquevaux's Permanent Collection, 2026.

Built from rubble carried from the hillside, "Through Her Eyes" gathers fragments of disruption and reassembles them into a quiet act of looking. Three openings frame water, land, and sky elemental perspectives that outlast human presence.

The structure exists between permanence and disappearance. Stones once discarded are stacked into temporary alignment, while moss is invited to grow, soften, and eventually reclaim the form. Time, weather, and living matter will slowly dissolve the artist’s intervention.

The work reflects on the smallness of human impact within larger cycles of destruction and renewal. In a world shaped by conflict, climate change, and collapse, "Through Her Eyes" offers a gentle counterpoint that from rubble, something contemplative can emerge, only to return again to the earth.

Sound sample taken from the landscape itself (Turn your sound up!)

First three photos were taken by the talented @wormgoth 💕 taken in Chateau Orquevaux by @melanie.billark

48

15

6 months ago

This has to be the cutest most honourable moment for me this school year 🥹😭😍

One of my fellow friends and teacher Audrey surprised me with this re-make of my project from 2021 titled "Sea Cycle" that I created during my one month long artist residency @studiohcanada , using all found and Upcycled materials on the island.

Audrey taught her JK and SKs all about my practice and this work, while creating their own collaborative version using recyclables they found in their classroom!

Swipe for their amazing version at the end! Thank you for sharing this Audrey and great job kiddos!! ✨💕

#artistwork #inspo #nextgen #educators by @melanie.billark

44

9

4 months ago

What I left in Amsterdam 🌱💕

We came here to visit my bestie and her partner @myu.ca to see the new life they created while she completes her masters and it only felt fitting to leave a temporary permanent Upcycled pollinator garden behind. Created with all natural soil watercolour paints only made here in the Netherlands 😍, an upcycled table and a found drawer!

I was blown away with the integration of sustainability in each aspect of the urban design within this city, it just goes to show how far behind Canada really is and how essential the work I am doing back home really is.

Biggest shout out to the most inspiring place @ndsm an old shipping port turned into an open air space for artists to express themselves freely, a space that every city should have as its critical for artists to play and explore their creativity in shared public spaces like this.

What an incredible, inspiring, healing, productive and creative journey I've been on, sad it came to an end but so incredibly proud of myself and excited to return with so much inspiration, motivation and drive to keep on doing what I do ✨💕

#artistjourney #ndsm #netherlands #artistlife #communitygarden taken in NDSM by @melanie.billark

24

3

6 months ago