Melissa Wallen

Melissa Wallen’s paintings open onto spaces where color collides and disperses, placing viewers at the edge of what can be seen and sensed. Her canvases remain unsettled: gestures layered, surfaces shifting, forms never fixed. Their register extends outward, evoking celestial markers, natural phenomena, and states of desire and procession.

Wallen is an American painter (b. 1987) in Voorhees, New Jersey, who lives and works in Miami, Florida. Wallen received a BFA in Painting and Fibers from Florida International University (2010). Her practice spans painting, collage, video, and curatorial work and is grounded in creating spaces where experimentation, embodiment, and community converge. Wallen is drawn to that which exists at thresholds—between material and immaterial, analog and digital, public and personal.

Selected solo exhibitions include “you are not an island” (2025, Miami Design District, Miami, Florida), “between sleep and sky” (2024, Baker—Hall Gallery, Miami, Florida), and “worlds behind you” (2023, Laundromat Art Space, Miami, Florida).

Selected group exhibitions include “Windows” (2025, Baker—Hall Gallery, Miami, Florida), “House in Motion” (2024, de la Cruz Collection, Miami, Florida), and “The BluPrnt” (2022, Bridge Red Studios, Miami, Florida).

Wallen is currently the Director of Exhibitions at Oolite Arts. Past professional experience includes Director of Art and Cultural Engagement, Key Biscayne Community Foundation, and Director, de la Cruz Collection, Miami. In 2022, she was recognized as a Knight Arts Champion by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for her ongoing contributions and leadership within Miami’s art community.