Melissa Bowen Rubin worked as an illustrator and graphic designer for many years in New York City, and then lived on the North Fork of Long Island for 15 years before moving back to the city. She has studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan and Woodstock, the New York Academy of Art, and at Art New England in Bennington, Vermont. She also holds a BA in Russian and Classical Studies, and an MA in teaching English as a Second Language, from Hunter College and until recently had a second career teaching ESL at New York University. She paints and draws in her studio in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

​

Her work has been exhibited at the New York Academy of Art, the Lower West Side Center and the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies in Manhattan; the Art Students League in Manhattan and Woodstock, NY; and in galleries in Riverhead, Southold and Mattituck on the North Fork.

​

Her paintings and drawings are in private collections in New York City, the North Fork, Florida,  Massachusetts, and California.