Artist Biography

Mel Prest is an American abstract artist, whose intricate, layered paintings mobilize color, line, and perspective to activate kinetic perceptual phenomena. She received her B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and her M.F.A. from Mills College in Oakland. Prest’s work has been exhibited internationally including The Drawing Center, New York; The Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Durham, NC; IS Projects, Leiden, The Netherlands; McKenzie Fine Art, New York; Saturation Point, London, UK; Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo. Prest has been awarded residencies at: Ragdale, The Sam and Adele Golden Artist Foundation (2012 and 2018), Willapa Bay AiR, (2014 and 2021), The Wassaic Project, The MH DeYoung Museum, Vermont Studio Center. Her work is held in collections at Apple; The Berkeley Art Museum, The Crocker Museum of Art; Kaiser Permanente; Marin General Hospital, The Mills College Art Museum, among others. Mel lives and works in San Francisco. She is a co-founder of Transmitter, a collaborative curatorial initiative in Brooklyn, New York.