TAI SNAITH PROFILED IN BROADSHEET FOR MECCA COLLABORATION
Meet the Artist Behind the Other-Worldly Butterflies and Insects in Mecca’s 2026 Holiday Artwork
Tai Snaith
It started with Tai Snaith pouring inks and watercolours in her Abbotsford studio – soon it’ll be all over your holiday gifts. In partnership with Mecca, we chat to the Melbourne artist about the joyful commission and being part of the NGV Triennial.
The season of giving takes a more colourful, whimsical turn each year thanks to Mecca’s festive holiday packaging. Whether it’s a Kris Kringle gift at a work party or a present for your sister hidden under the tree, the packaging takes a different form each year – but is distinctively Mecca, and brings joy to beauty-loving Aussies tearing them open.
It’s the 11th year the Australian beauty retailer has tapped a female artist to design its holiday packaging, with previous collaborators including Kaylene Whiskey, Louise Zhang, Tammy Kanat, Rebecca Baumann and Natalya Hughes. And this year’s Mecca Holiday Artist, in partnership with the NGV, is Melbourne-based painter, author and ceramic artist Tai Snaith.
“I’ve always been a big fan of the artists who have done this before,” Snaith says, following years of admiring past collaborators like Karen Black and Nadia Hernández. “I have an enormous amount of pride in my city and Mecca is a very Melbourne thing.”
Unlike in previous years, where artists’ pre-existing works were adapted into packaging, Snaith was commissioned to create a new piece called Party of the Parts: a vibrant, chaotic exploration of the multifaceted nature of womanhood, embracing imperfection over polished beauty. “I was really looking at different parts of myself as a woman,” she says.
This year’s artwork is being rolled out across all Mecca stores, with millions of gift boxes and bags hitting counter tops and being delivered nationwide from October 27. But before all the production that comes with a gifting season campaign of this magnitude, it first started in a sunlit studio in Abbotsford, Melbourne.
Snaith’s creative process involves pouring watercolours and inks onto unstretched linen as a base, then she builds up the top layer in oil paint. She says it’s an intuitive, stain-first method. “It’s like alchemy – you get this unpredictability. Some of the characters actually grow directly out of the stains on the canvas.”
The result is a surreal exploration of metamorphosis, with butterflies, grubs and caterpillars blending feminine forms with nature. “The characters I portrayed are all very different. I really wanted people to be able to look at it and see themselves in one of the characters.” It also aligns with how Snaith views makeup itself: as a suspension of disbelief. “You can become something, and why not become a butterfly?”
To inject spontaneity into her painting, Snaith taped her brushes to the ends of long, gnarled sticks collected from her garden. The resulting figures – half-human, half-insect, multi-limbed, and wearing quirky masks – create their own kind of beauty.
The Mecca team then took Snaith’s universe and translated it into packaging, storefront decals and product ranges across 110 stores in Australia and New Zealand, as well as into three-metre-high sculptures in the Bourke Street flagship store.
Alongside the Holiday campaign, Snaith will present work as part of the NGV Triennial 2026, opening on December 13. Wild Weed Tea, a large-scale wall drawing created for the NGV Tea Room, celebrates unruly creative women from art history and draws parallels with weeds and the way they grow with resilience and tenacity. It celebrates influential female figures like Emmy Hennings, Vali Myers, Joy Hester and Rachilde.
As part of its ongoing commitment to championing women in the arts, Mecca will also generously support NGV’s acquisition of Wild Weed Tea. The acquisition will see Snaith’s work join the NGV Collection alongside many of the artists who have inspired her throughout her career, continuing Mecca and the NGV’s commitment to supporting Australian women in the arts.
“It was just a proper ‘Yes, and?’ kind of collaboration,” Snaith says of working with Mecca. “They didn’t hold back – it’s as big and as lush as it could possibly be.”
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Mecca.