Melissa Tobia is an award winning artist who received the Chemical Bank Art Award, The Dawn Marie Benz Scholarship, and won 2nd place award presented by Congress Man Tom Downey. She is currently a member of the EBSQ Online Art Community and recently won a "Member's Choice" award for her pastel piece "The Perfect Lily". She has studied at the Art Student's League of New York under artists Barbara Adrian and Ephraim Rubenstein. Melissa studied Advertising Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and received an A.A.S. Afterwards, she received her B.F.A. from School of Visual Arts in NY where she majored in Computer Art.

One of her watercolor florals hangs in the collection of the Long Island Bank.

Melissa doesn't choose her subjects, her subjects choose her.
"Melissa Tobia is a versatile and talented artist who excels in every medium of her choice. Her technical prowess and her observation to detail are equal to her imaginative use of color and expression.
She is a careful observer with an innovative approach. Her
portraits and florals capture the very essence and personality of her subjects." -- Renée Phillips, Director of Manhattan Arts International
and author.

Melissa enjoys painting subjects that may normally go unnoticed. Everything that she chooses is because she has been captured by the subject, and she sees it's appeal. She takes her influences from impressionist and surrealist artists that she has studied in the past like Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Salvador Dali and René Magritte. As a vivid person, Melissa uses a lot of emotion and color in her work. She likes to use vibrant and expressive colors in a bold dramatic fashion and puts a lot of fluidity in her pieces. Melissa's work has somewhat of an illustrative quality, but she wouldn't say that she is an illustrator or a realist. She would describe her style as naturalistic.

Melissa currently resides in New York with her husband, her 5 year old twins and their cat.

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Melissa Tobia Art Page