ARTIST STATEMENT
Melissa Zarem is an abstract painter working in mixed media. Her practice layers expressive gesture, experimental mark-making, and accumulated texture to produce richly built surfaces.
Through an ongoing dialogue with her materials, Zarem’s work is built with the understanding that the truth of seeing is not fixed or singular. Borders are permeable and opposing forces coexist with both balance and tension. The paintings evolve, becoming their own evidence of growth and complexity.
BIOGRAPHY
Melissa Zarem’s work has been exhibited at the Abrons Art Center (New York, NY), the Arnot Museum (Elmira, NY), the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center (Auburn, NY), Novado Gallery (Jersey City, NJ), and SUNY Corning Community College. She has been a featured artist at Ithaca College (2013), Aqua Art Miami (2014), and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University (2015), where her work was acquired for the permanent collection. Zarem is currently represented by Corners Gallery (Ithaca, NY).
Zarem has received grants and fellowships from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts (2016), the Vermont Studio Center (2023), the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County (2016, 2023), and the Legacy Foundation (2024). Spring Loaded, a book of her black-and-white drawings, was published by EYE Gallery in 2016 while more recent work appears in the newest issue of Stone Canoe Literary Journal.
Her recent practice has embraced collaboration. No Words: a Postcard-Based Conversation Between Two Artists, created with Elise Nicol during the pandemic, was exhibited at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. In a 2026 collaboration with Werner Sun, Zarem co-curated In Process, a collective residency with Eyevee Arts at Cortright Electric.
