Melanie Counsell is a leading British artist who creates temporary transformations of unusual environments and unoccupied buildings. Her works are remarkable for their economy of means and their poignant engagement with feelings of absence and loss. She has exhibted internationally, and was also awarded residencies at L'Ecole National des Beaux-Arts, Bourges, the Cartier Foundation, Jouy-en-Josas, the Sargant Fellowship at the British School at Rome and a 2009 residency at Cove Park, Scotland. She was shortlisted for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award in 1996 and was previously awarded the The Arts Foundation Award and the Whitechapel Artists Award. She currently lectures at the Slade School of Fine Art.