Mel Reese

"Danny", lounging nude figure painting w/ pencil, gouache, and acrylic on paper

2014

Melanie Reese is an artist and curator who was born in 1991 in Livingston, NJ. She received her B.S. from Skidmore College in 2013. During that time she studied at Studio Art Centers International (SACI) in Florence. She completed an artist residency at Elsewhere Studios in 2013 and went on to receive a Post-Baccalaureate certificate from San Francisco Art Institute in 2014. Melanie received her MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in NYC in May 2017 and attended the Vermont Studio Center residency in November 2017. Melanie has had solo exhibitions at MILCON Gallery, R&D Studios Bushwood, and Suzette LaValle in Brooklyn, NY. She has also shown in several selected group and juried exhibitions throughout the United States including All Kinds of Wonder and Connection at The Gallery at the Watershed in Eugene, Oregon; Post-Appreciation at the Diego Rivera Gallery at San Francisco Art Institute; Remember Me Offline at the Curatorial Practices Department at SVA in Manhattan; Play Me A Game at the Skybridge Gallery at Eugene Lang College; Breach at Rabbit Hole Studio in Dumbo; Girls Gone Wild Spring Break Edition at R&D Studios Bushwood; Cognitive Dissidence at Ray Smith Studio; The Map is Not the Territory at the Brooklyn Pfizer Building; Unicode at SVA Flatiron Gallery in Chelsea, NY; and Leaving the Body at The Yard – City Hall Park in Manhattan, NY. Melanie was on a panel for the “The Entrepreneurial Artist Workshop” at the Tang Museum and received the Award of Excellence from the 58th Long Island Artist Exhibition at the Art League of Long Island. Her work has been published in New American Paintings Northeast Issue 134, New American Painting Featured Artists, Inside Artists, Studio Visit Magazine vol 45, Studio Visit Magazine vol 49&50, Artwork Archive Blog, A Women’s Thing, Vellum Magazine, THE KIND, and Wallhop. In addition to her work as an artist, Melanie is the Head Curator for both Bushwood Land in Ridgewood, NY and Art in Res (YC W20). She developed and now manages both curatorial programs. In 2021 she was an independent curator in SPRING/BREAK Art Show: HEARSAY:HERESY. Melanie lives and works in Greenpoint, BK with her fiancé and cat, Miss Puds, who hates all of Mel’s paintings and is always her toughest critic.