Artist Statement & Gallery

**Melissa "Mesa" Matarese**

**is a nature-based, multimedia artist dedicated to fully living her wild, precious life.** From living in MINIMUS, her largest work to date, a hand-build, off-grid tiny house on wheels to creating with natural and repurposed materials, she is not only inspired by nature but is dedicated to life of reciprocity that showcases the brilliance of the natural world.
For Mesa creating is not a choice, it is a necessity. Since childhood art has been her refuge. It is how she sees, relates to and makes sense of the world. Creativity serve as her greatest source of joy, most effective form of therapy and the core of her spiritual practice.

Equal to Mesa’s passion for creating is her desire to evoke creativity in others. She actively teaches lesson and workshop to help keep the creative spirit alive within her community.

Mesa earned her formal education from Kutztown University and the University of Waikato of New Zealand. More importantly she continues to gain her informal education through nature and by giving herself permission to make extraordinary messes and fascinating mistakes.