Mel French was born in London in 1971. Moving to Ireland in 1993, French graduated from the National College of Art and Design (1997) with a First Class Degree in Fine Art (Sculpture) and from The New York Academy of Art (2003), with a Cum Laude Masters in Fine Art (Sculpture). French works predominantly in sculpture, amalgamating traditional skills with contemporary concerns. Creating visceral, often distorted figurative forms and animal hybrids, she combines traditional sculptural techniques with found materials in order to explore the human condition and psyche. Modelling in clay and using applied anatomy techniques, French moulds and casts in various medium such as chocolate, hair, laundry lint, soap, concrete, cast metal, resins or wax in order to more fully elucidate her concepts. The recipient of a number of permanent public art commissions nationwide, her work also features in private collections . French has received various awards for her work including the Prince of Wales Fellowship, The Irish Concrete Society Award for Sculpture and the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Award, and has exhibited in various selected exhibitions, as an invited artist, both nationally and internationally. French has been permanently based in Westmeath since returning from New York in 2003.