Mel Terrazas was born in 1992 in central New York and received her BFA in drawing and painting from Purchase College in 2015. She is currently based between Denver and Morrison, CO, where she works out of a home studio in the mountains.

Her practice has expanded well beyond her academic roots to include welding, ceramic sculpture, and printmaking — a growing material vocabulary that reflects her ongoing interest in process and experimentation.

Her current series centers on organic forms and molecular imagery, examining restrictive nature of materials in an attempt to replicate the natural world. Mel manipulates surfaces and mediums beyond their intended use, pushing each to its limits. The work is deliberately playful; failure is not incidental here, but often the point.