Melissa Rubin Bio
Melissa Rubin is a visual artist, and art educator, living and working in Rockaway Beach, New York City. She holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MSEd. in Arts Leadership from Bank Street College, both in New York City. She sits on the board of the International Encaustic Artists Organization as Director of Education. Melissa has exhibited her work in group and solo exhibitions. Her art is in the permanent collection of the Encaustic Art Institute in New Mexico, has been used on film sets, and many of her works are in private collections in the United States and Europe.
In late October, 2012, the Rockaway Peninsula was inundated by the 14 foot surge of ocean from Hurricane Sandy. Her home was severely damaged, and her studio uninhabitable for months, yet Melissa coped with this transformative experience through her artistic expression. In the aftermath of the storm, Melissa became emblematic of artists surviving the devastation by creating art. Her work was included in the New York City exhibition After Affects: An exhibition of Work by Artists Affected by Hurricane Sandy, organized by the New York Foundation for the Arts. She was interviewed for CBS This Morning and her painting ‘Sinking’ was featured in April 2013’s ARTnews Magazine, in the article ‘When Storm is Collaborator’ by Rachel Wolff. Melissa is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts ‘Hurricane Sandy Relief Grant’ and was also recently awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Melissa will be exhibiting her work in a solo exhibition at the John Molloy Gallery in New York City in September 2014. Her work can be viewed at: