Melanie Kozol is a visual artist and educator focusing on the nuance of light, color and form embedded in the landscape. She probes the boundaries between representation and abstraction while remaining firmly rooted in the world we know. Working from 'plein air' studies, photographic documentation, and memory, Kozol re-imagines the environment through the painting process. Her landscape paintings and drawings are infused with memory and the experience of being in nature.

Kozol received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts and her BFA from Connecticut College. She is a recipient of an NEA Visual Artist Fellowship in painting, the Bill Prize from Connecticut College, a Skowhegan scholarship for drawing at the New York Studio School, and a Mercedes Matter Award for painting from Curator, Yasmeen Siddiqui, at NYSS. In 2025, Kozol will join the Arctic Circle Expedition. Kozol has been awarded residencies at DNA, Provincetown, MA; the Clipperton Project, Shetland Islands, Scotland; the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Amherst, VA; the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Ithaca, NY; Teatown Reservation, Ossining, NY; and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine. Kozol has exhibited her work nationally for over three decades. Solo exhibits include Coast 2020, 350 Bleeker Gallery; If a Tree Falls 2014, 350 Bleecker Gallery; TreeHouse, Lake George Arts Project, NY; Teatown Lake Reservation, NY; Weber Fine Arts, NY; Bromfield Gallery, Boston, MA. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Susan Eley Gallery, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, NYSS, The Painting Center, Galerie Protégé, Project Room 88, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Alexander Gallery, DFN and Weill Art Gallery. Kozol’s paintings were featured in the movies A Birders Guide to Everything, 2013 and Damsels in Distress, 2011. Her paintings are in numerous public and private collections including the OCC at the Department of the Treasury, the Pfizer Corporation, Deutsche Bank and the Bellagio Hotel. Kozol is a visiting professor at Pratt Institute, and a painting instructor at the Gilda and Henry Block School of the Arts, 92NY. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.