Frances Melhop

Frances Melhop is a visual artist, curator, educator and gallery director, born in Christchurch, New Zealand, living and working at Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Melhop works in tactile mediums such as photography, printmaking, hand embroidery, sculpture and oil paint exploring the tensions between the virtual and physical ways we experience the world. Her focus is on human presence and absence in our screen and material lives, reveling in imperfection and evidence of the human hand.

Melhop has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions worldwide at notable institutions such as Autry Museum (Los Angeles), Brownsville Museum (Brownsville,Texas), Cincinnati Art Museum, (Cincinnati, Ohio), Murray State University, (Murray, Kentucky), Gertrude Herbert Institute, (Augusta, Georgia), and Arizona State University, (Phoenix, Arizona). She has exhibited collaborative works with Susan Norrie at Nancy Hoffman Gallery (New York City) and the NSW Museum of Art, (Sydney, Australia).

In 2020 as founder, curator and artist, she opened Melhop Gallery °7077, at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, representing 12 national and international artists. She also curates themed group shows with other invited exceptional artists. For the past six years, she also taught in the art departments of University of Nevada, Reno, Western Nevada College, Truckee Meadows Community College and Lake Tahoe Community College.