Melissa Sclafani (she/they) is a South Florida–based interdisciplinary artist working across post-minimalist sculpture, installation, and performance. Their practice examines how bodies are shaped and constrained by systemic pressures, including white supremacy, capitalism, and the patriarchy. Focusing on sites of contradiction where support and pressure coexist -- where holding something up might also wear it down. Through material and form, Sclafani uses making as a way to wrestle with power, failure, and structural harm, building objects that both reflect and destabilize systems of control.
 

Sclafani earned an MFA in Sculpture and Post-Studio Practices from the University of Colorado Boulder (2018), and a BFA from SUNY New Paltz (2009). Influenced by feminist and queer theorists, including Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, and Jack Halberstam, her work engages the social body through recurring metaphors of support, collapse, labor, and resistance.
 

Solo and two-person exhibitions include Play Hard at Vision Gallery and Chandler Museum (AZ), Crowd Control at NURTUREArt (NY), and Conflux at Colorado Mesa University, with forthcoming solo exhibitions at The Frank C. Otis Art Gallery in Pembroke Pines, FL (2027). Their work has been exhibited nationally at institutions including Collar Works and the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport Museum, where it is held in the permanent collection.
 

She has received fellowships and grants from Oolite Arts, Broward County Cultural Division, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and has completed residencies with Talking Dolls, Uncool Artist, Vermont Studio Center, Carrizozo AIR, and Franconia Sculpture Park. In addition to their studio practice, Sclafani is an educator and facilitator, currently serving as Head of Sculpture at Florida Atlantic University.