BIO
FRANCES MELHOP
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.
MELHOP GALLERY º7077 + Melhop Projects
Originally a brick-and-mortar, white cube, contemporary art space at Zephyr Cove, Lake Tahoe, the gallery has transformed into a nomadic curatorial project with a virtual online viewing and art collecting platform. Always less traditional, Director Frances Melhop has created a roving gallery with an inspired new approach to how we might think about a contemporary art gallery.
Melhop represents 12 artists, while providing support and nurturing their careers, she also introduces experienced and fledgling collectors to fresh, diverse, conceptual, contemporary artwork not normally found in this region. The artists presented are local, national, and international, ranging from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to New York, Seoul, Kumamoto Japan, London and Moscow. Through careful research Melhop curates dynamic guerilla-style pop up exhibitions, while facilitating art installations and studio visits for people to experience art and meet artists in non-intimidating ways.
Mission: to support artists, build community, collaborate with institutions, galleries, and other entities, so artists can realize projects in non-traditional spaces, that are more meaningful and relevant to their work. The benefits of not being restricted to only one space are already clear. Melhop can cast a broader geographical net, without being tied to one place, meaning - more exposure for the artists.
Frances is represented in Europe by Paola Sciarretta at
PS Artists Management, and by Melhop Gallery º7077 in the USA