Melissa, when do you feel wild? What makes you feel the most alive?

I feel wild when I create artworks. I love getting messy in the studio, mixing and matching paints, brushes, painting tools and pouring paint across the canvas. I feel at total sense of ease and deeply connected to myself and my surroundings.

I feel most alive when I spend time walking on country and seeing landscapes and textures of our local area in the Saltwater Country.

My mum and I have a deep respect for this land; its crystal-clear rivers, stunning rainforests, blue ocean and trees and bush lands filled with wildlife. Not to mention the rolling green hills, ancient birthing caves and rock formations that also surround us.

What do you love the most working together as a mother-daughter duo?

I love working with mum because there’s no judgement. We can be completely ourselves and feel safe and respected. We can support each other in navigating a fast-growing business, there’s so much to learn and do along the way.

Mum is the humble quiet achiever and has never liked the limelight. Same with myself, but we realise there’s a bigger purpose to what we are doing, and we take that very seriously. We love that opening up this opportunity to collaborate with Adairs will now offer other Indigenous artists the platform to do the same.

Your colour palette is absolutely stunning. Where do you find your inspiration for your art and textiles?

I’ve always been attracted to colours, mixing and blending colours to make my own unique palette. Colours are everything as they lift the energy in the room to make people feel something and connect deeply with a story your trying to share.

My strongest inspiration for my art comes from my Country; the land we live on is everything, the earth is our greatest teacher, our knowledge holder and our divine authority. We are native title holders and my Nanny fought very hard for that right to protect our country and its history. My Matriarchs – my nanny Ms Jarrett from Bowraville and great granee Taylor from Corindi Red Rock, also inspire my work. My granee was a cultural midwife and delivered many goori babies in our family. My birthing caves art is inspired by her.

The Adairs range holds a deep respect for land, culture and my elders. We were raised to always show the deepest respect to our elders. The colours and patterns are inspired by our local area, the Saltwater Country. It’s the most majestic and special land and can be found detailed in each piece of the collection. We wanted to bring a touch of this magic into people’s homes.

We sit down with the Adairs team to find out more about this beautiful collaboration.

What are some of the reasons you decided to collaborate with Miimi + Jiinda?

As a brand, Adairs has always prioritised supporting local artists. As a born and bred Australian brand ourselves, we feel collaborations of this nature are the most fitting and a great way to support and showcase Australian artists.

We have followed Miimi + Jiinda’s work for a long time and absolutely adore the prints and meaning behind each and every piece. When we reached out to the pair in early January, they couldn’t be more excited to jump on board and expressed their admiration of our brand.

This range has almost sold out! Will you be doing a second run?

The popularity of the range has surpassed all expectations. Both the in-store and online product flew off the shelves. At this stage, we won’t be re-launching the products from this specific collection however it certainly won’t be the last of its kind and we are excited to continue our relationship with local Australian artists.

Will we be seeing more Australian artist collaborations in the future?

Absolutely. Adairs regularly teams up with Australian artists. We have previously worked with the likes of Dana Kinter, Fleur Harris and Mark Tuckey. The Miimi + Jiinda for Adairs range will certainly not be the last of its kind and we are excited to continue our relationship with local Australian artists.

For more, visit adairs.com.au or @adairs on Instagram.