Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Melda Klingler is celebrated for her vibrant, colorful acrylic works distinguished by their extraordinary dimensionality. For more than 40 years, she has devoted herself to painting—an artistic journey that began in Europe, where she first learned her craft and developed a lasting love for bold color, expressive texture, and innovative technique.

While Melda paints, her signature style goes far beyond the traditional brushstroke. She creates and incorporates acrylic “paint skins” into her pieces—scraping richly pigmented paint from her palette, then molding and shaping it by hand before attaching it to the canvas. These sculptural layers are carefully formed and placed, building a luminous, tactile surface that quite literally rises from the painting. The result is a dynamic interplay of color, depth, and light, set against shimmering complementary backgrounds that enhance the vitality of each work.

Melda is a lifelong learner, continually taking classes and exploring new ideas to grow as an artist. She believes creative evolution is essential, and her willingness to experiment keeps her work fresh, modern, and reflective.

For Melda, painting is more than an art form—it is meditation, therapy, and joy. It relieves stress, restores balance, and allows her to see and celebrate life through color and form. She readily admits she tends to “go overboard” with her dimensional elements—once she begins adding layers of sculpted acrylic, she can’t stop. The more she builds, the more luminous and alive each piece becomes. To her, every added layer increases the richness, the energy, the “juice.”

Simply put, for Melda Klingler, painting is life.