BIO
FRANCES MELHOP
Frances Melhop is a visual artist, curator and gallery director, born in Christchurch, New Zealand, now living in the USA. She has worked globally in the fashion industry as a photographer, constructing imagery; conceptualizing, shooting, and directing stories for publications such as Vogue Italy editions, Vogue Australia, Elle Portugal, and Marie Claire Italy.
In 2009, Luerzer's Archive named Melhop one of The World’s 200 Best Advertising Photographers for the images she created for the campaign of Descamps, France. In 2014 she was awarded the NNDA Comstock Innovator of the Year Award for her arts and community work at St Mary’s Art Center, in Virginia City, Nevada.
Melhop’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions worldwide. She works in photography, stitching, printmaking, installation and oil paint, exploring the tensions between the virtual and physical ways we experience the world.
Melhop has taught Printmaking, Drawing, Photography, Introduction to the Arts, and Visual Foundations at University of Nevada, Reno, and local colleges in Nevada. She completed her MFA at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA. She holds a CAS in Curatorial Practices from Zurich University of the Arts.
In 2020 she opened the contemporary art gallery, Melhop Gallery º7077, and initiated Melhop Projects, at Lake Tahoe, Nevada
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