about
Melissa Borman is a Minneapolis-based photographer and installation artist. Her work addresses the interconnected relationship embedded in using landscape elements as metaphors to depict our human stories and how these depictions shape our ideas of our surroundings.
Melissa has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Regional Cultural Center, Co. Donegal, Ireland, Galería Valid Foto BCN, Barcelona, Spain, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, GA, Filter Space, Chicago, IL, and Griffin Museum, Boston, MA. Melissa is a member of Minnesota's longest-running collective art gallery, Rosalux. She is a recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board, Artist Initiative and Creative Support Grants, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Grant, and Rochester Art Center's Jerome Emerging Artist Award.
Melissa's self-published artist book, A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter launched in September 2019. Her booklet Birds, a collaboration with writer Andy Sturdevant and designer Justin D. Allen, is in the Rosemary Furtak Artist Book Collection at the Walker Art Center.
Melissa has been an educator for over 20 years. For 15 years she led summer programs at the Burren College of Art in Co. Clare Ireland. Recently she has served as a mentor in Minneapolis College of Art and Design's MFA Program. Melissa is currently a full-time faculty member in Art and Gender Studies and Exhibitions Director at Century College in White Bear Lake, Mn. It was through her position at Century that she partnered with a local Somali Artist to create the Young East African Artists Project. Funded by an MN State Arts Board Arts Learning Grant the project provided opportunities for high school students from East African immigrant communities to learn photography as a creative tool. The program culminated in an exhibition at the Quater Gallery at the University of Minnesota Department of Art.
