About
What came prior to this moment made it possible.
Melissa Prior was born in Minnesota and has spent more than half her life rooted in the Pacific Northwest. Art became her therapy at a young age, following her into college where she threw herself in fully. A six-foot painted pepper still hangs from the ceiling of her studio today, a quiet reminder that art can be painful, powerful, and worth carrying with you.
For years, Melissa was the resident artist at a local wine bar, her colorful, textured abstracts filling the walls, her presence woven into the community. Then, without notice, the bar closed. Several of her paintings disappeared in the process. She was young, raising young children, and facing a loss that felt too fragile to chase. So she made the only choice that felt survivable. She stepped away.
What looks like giving up rarely is.
When she returned to the canvas nearly a decade later, something had shifted. She sat with an ugly, unforgiving canvas long enough to start seeing what was already there: flowers emerging from the texture, shapes rising from stillness, meaning surfacing from what looked like nothing. That painting became the beginning of everything she is making now.
Her style is texture and bold color. She builds surfaces in layers, filling canvases with shapes and energy that feel both wild and intentional. She wants people to feel the mix of energy in the layers. She wants them to feel inspired. She wants them to step back and look at things another way.
After all, that's what Melissa Prior has done. Stepping away is not the same as giving up, she knows the difference now. She is finding her way back, one painting at a time.