Chelle Destefano, a Deaf woman artist, born in 1979 and currently lives in Melbourne, Victoria. She lived in Adelaide, South Australia for 18 years where she began her arts studies and arts career. She has been exhibiting since 2012 and one of her highlights was being one of the 8 artists in an Arts Exchange for Berlin with Arts Access Australia in October 2017 that gave her experience of working with other artists from different cultural backgrounds. They included workshops run by the artists and an exhibition as part of the Berlin arts festival. More recent highlights include three major exhibitions for "What I Wish I'd Told You" touring Victoria in 2022 in collaboration with Claire Bridge; collaborating in a performance with Jacqui Stockdale as part of Jacqui's Ned Kelly exhibition in late 2022; and recently a professional development solo performance and exhibition in July 2023 in Melbourne at Temperance Hall. She was the winner of a Creative Victoria's Creative Workers' grant that has enabled her to create a major performance piece for 2023.
Chelle is a multi-disciplinary artist and she works with textiles, performance, installation, sculpture, drawing media and mixed media to explore culture and identity including her Deaf culture and other forms of critical subjects surrounding identity and the environment, and her relationship with time and space. She has focused on dance performance using gestural movements with her Auslan language in an abstract sense to discover what her Deaf experiences mean and the history of oppression has meant in affecting her life as many other Deaf people have experienced and more fun areas such as her inner child to try encourage people to embrace this and not be oppressed by old outdated ideas of societal norms from the 1900s..
Chelle has a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Applied Design (2006) from SA (South Australia) Arts School and recently completed her Masters of Contemporary Art at VCA in Melbourne University. She works individually and has been doing collaborations with other artists, notably a major Deaf project called What I Wish I'd Told You with artist Claire Bridge who is hearing and a Deaf alley.
Chelle also produced a collaborative performance with three other Deaf people for the Melbourne Fringe 2021, called Streetlight #1 and the performance was shortlisted for one of the Fringe awards, the Emerging Artist Award.
Chelle is the recent winner of the Creative Australia (formerly known as the Australian Council of the Arts) Disability Initiative award.
Chelle was a winner of the Lake Art Prize (2020) for her multidisciplinary textile and performance work and has been a finalist in a number of art prizes including the Muswellbrooke Art Prize (2023), Footscray Art Award (2021), Wyndham Art Prize (2022), Banyule Art Award for Works on Paper (2019 and 2021), the Lyn McCrea Memorable Drawing Prize (2019), Fisher's Ghost Art Award (2020, 2022), the Noel Counihan Commemorative Art Award (2019, 2020, 2022), the Midsummer Post Art Award (2020), The Incinerator Art Award (2020), and the Watercolour Muster (2021).
Chelle is a multi-disciplinary artist and she works with textiles, performance, installation, sculpture, drawing media and mixed media to explore culture and identity including her Deaf culture and other forms of critical subjects surrounding identity and the environment, and her relationship with time and space. She has focused on dance performance using gestural movements with her Auslan language in an abstract sense to discover what her Deaf experiences mean and the history of oppression has meant in affecting her life as many other Deaf people have experienced and more fun areas such as her inner child to try encourage people to embrace this and not be oppressed by old outdated ideas of societal norms from the 1900s..
Chelle has a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Applied Design (2006) from SA (South Australia) Arts School and recently completed her Masters of Contemporary Art at VCA in Melbourne University. She works individually and has been doing collaborations with other artists, notably a major Deaf project called What I Wish I'd Told You with artist Claire Bridge who is hearing and a Deaf alley.
Chelle also produced a collaborative performance with three other Deaf people for the Melbourne Fringe 2021, called Streetlight #1 and the performance was shortlisted for one of the Fringe awards, the Emerging Artist Award.
Chelle is the recent winner of the Creative Australia (formerly known as the Australian Council of the Arts) Disability Initiative award.
Chelle was a winner of the Lake Art Prize (2020) for her multidisciplinary textile and performance work and has been a finalist in a number of art prizes including the Muswellbrooke Art Prize (2023), Footscray Art Award (2021), Wyndham Art Prize (2022), Banyule Art Award for Works on Paper (2019 and 2021), the Lyn McCrea Memorable Drawing Prize (2019), Fisher's Ghost Art Award (2020, 2022), the Noel Counihan Commemorative Art Award (2019, 2020, 2022), the Midsummer Post Art Award (2020), The Incinerator Art Award (2020), and the Watercolour Muster (2021).