Based in the Bay Area of California, Mel Prest is a non-objective painter whose work is focused on color and perceptual visual relationships. She has exhibited internationally and her works have been acquired by museums, corporate and private collections, including the Schneider Museum of Art, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and Google. Recent solo shows include: Mel Prest: The Golden Hour at the Schneider Museum of Art (2022), Time is Knots on a String at GalleriUrbane (2022), Color Unfolding at K Imperial Fine Art (2021), lux at Galleri Urbane (2018), Lilac Aura at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary (2017), In Praise of Planetary Time at B Sakata Garo (2016) in Sacramento, COLOR CHANTat Chandra Cerrito Contemporary (2015), Oakland; MoonBrightChime at Galleri Urbane (2014), Dallas. Her works have been included in group shows at: The Drawing Center, New York, NY; The Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Durham, NC; Saturation Point ACME studios, London, UK; Zeitgeist gallery, Nashville, TN; IS Projects, Leiden, The Netherlands; Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. Presthas been awarded funded artist residencies at: Ragdale, The Sam and Adele Golden Artist Foundation, Willapa Bay AiR, The Wassaic Project and Vermont Studio Center, Bullseye Glass, among others.

Prest received her BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from Mills College in Oakland. Prest has taught at Mills College, San Francisco State University and adult education courses at: San Francisco City College, San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts and Root Division. She is currently an advisory board member of Root Division, a non-profit arts organization in San Francisco and served as a board member from 2012-2014. Prest served on the advisory board of The Art Monastery Project, Calvi della Umbria and Labro, Italy from 2007-2010 and on the artist advisory board of Trestle Gallery in Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York from 2012-2021.

As an independent curator, Prest has organized shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Bay Area, New York, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich and Zagreb. She is also a founding member of Transmitter, a collaborative curatorial gallery initiative in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York.

Prest is represented by K. Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco, CA and Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX..