About
Frances Melhop is a visual artist, curator 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, CA), Brownsville Museum (Brownsville,TX), Cincinnati Art Museum, (Cincinnati, OH), Murray State University, (Murray, KY), Gertrude Herbert Institute, (Augusta, GA), and Arizona State University, (Phoenix, AZ). She has exhibited collaborative works with Susan Norrie at Nancy Hoffman Gallery (New York, NY) and the NSW Museum of Art, (Sydney, Australia).
Awards include, Nevada Arts Council Fellowship 2025, University of Nevada, Reno, Outstanding Artist Award, 2019, NNDA Innovator of the Year 2014, Luerzers Archive World’s Best Photographers 2009/2010.
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 last 6 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.
Melhop spent her early career as an acclaimed editorial fashion photographer based out of Sydney, Australia, and Milan, Italy. She made narrative fairytale photographic stories of women for women. Her work appeared in Vogue Australia, Vogue Italia editions, Vogue Pelle and Vogue Gioielli, Elle Portugal, Gioia Italy, Casamica, and Marie Claire Italy.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Photography and Art History, a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Art from University of Nevada, Reno, and a post graduate CAS in Curatorial Practices from Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland.
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