Melissa Imossi was born in Long Island, New York in 1969. At the age of thirty, she realized that art was her calling while taking classes in drawing and anatomy at the Art Students’ League in New York. She moved to Florence, Italy in early 2002 to continue training as an artist at the Angel Academy of Art where she learned the techniques of the Old Masters. At the Angel Academy, and later at other private studios in Florence, Melissa developed the tools necessary to express herself as an artist.

Melissa’s recent paintings focus on the simple beauty found in nature. Hoping to reconnect the viewers with their natural surroundings, she creates scenes that include a single person interacting with their environment or just losing themselves in it. Interested in the simplicity of Asian design, she also searches for the elegance in the organic forms of trees by painting close up views of the particulars. Her “Tree” series highlights the subtle elegance and distinct personalities of trees. She creates moods by highlighting the diverse personalities of the trees, like the drama of twisting branches of an olive tree or the serenity of a symmetrical tree farm marching into the distance.

Melissa has been rewarded with several awards and achievements. She was recently juried into the “Works on Paper” exhibit at the Long Island Museum and has been accepted into two-person exhibits in CT and NY. She was a finalist in the Annual Competition in the "Artist Magazine" in 2006, competing against 10,000 entries. She is also proud of winning First Place in the Artist Magazine’s annual student competition in 2004. Most recently, she was juried into the National Association of Women Artists.

Her artwork is available at the Leftbank Gallery, Essex CT, MRK Gallery in Port Jefferson, NY and through her website.