Melissa Kathleen McCaig-Welles

Melissa McCaig-Welles is an art curator and founder of McCaig-Welles Gallery. Melissa focuses on mid-career, cutting edge artists that have emerged from the urban aesthetics that figured prominently in cities around the U.S. leading up to the millennium. The impact of these styles now feature prominently in media, pop culture and in museums and galleries worldwide.

Melissa is committed to showcasing impactful and innovative artists that effectively place a mirror in front of the viewer by creating works that touch on current events, present day trends and insightful introspection. Melissa is recognized for her curatorial endeavors, discovering contemporary art talent and placing it at the forefront of her programs, presenting artists recognized as pioneers of the new contemporary art movements including: Swoon, Shepard Fairey, Queen Andrea, Martha Cooper, Lady Pink, KAWS, Futura, Dalek, Logan Hicks ,Andrew Shoultz and many more.

Melissa Mccaig-Welles was honored by The City of New York as an elected judge on the NYC Curates Panel of Judges. She has served on the advisory panel at RISD and Pratt Institute, offering career advice for selected MFA candidates. Melissa served as a curatorial committee member of The Times Square Alliance and is a member of The Womans Art Dealer Association.

Recent projects have taken she and her artists abroad to cities including, Beirut, Lebanon, bringing street art and murals to long neglected neighborhoods, uniting people from different backgrounds together to work hand in hand towards a common objective.

Curating in Athens, Greece, Melissa exhibited works by Shepard Fairey, Logan Hicks and Swoon alongside Athens street art pioneers such as Cacao Rocks, Iakovos Volkov, N_Grams, STMTS, and Vaggelis Choursoglou, integrating the works of renowned artists from New York City and Athens, creating a dialogue between these two distinct and diverse cultures touching on an array of unique styles, techniques, studies and philosophies.

In Biarritz, France and San Sebastian, Spain she worked with founder Jean-Claude Géraud on a street art auction “Ride for Mongolia” which helped fund the first skate park and elementary school in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital of Mongolia.

Melissa regularly engages in artist and curatorial panels and was a lead speaker at Moscow Urban Forum, alongside Steven Raspa, Regional Development Director of the Burning Man Festival.

She is currently working with her roster of artists in independent curatorial exhibits and as an art consultant in NYC.