Melanie Cooper Pennington is a sculptor based in Bloomington, Indiana, where she serves as Area Head of Sculpture and Senior Lecturer at Indiana University. Her practice spans intimate figurative studies, large-scale installations, and public sculpture, using the body as a framework for exploring emotional experience, endurance, vulnerability, and transformation.

​

Pennington received her MFA in Sculpture from Indiana University in 2016. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the International Center for the Arts in Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy; New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art; ARTLINK Contemporary; and IFell Gallery. Recent group exhibitions include ACRE Projects in Chicago, Distortion Gallery in Beacon, New York, and the Grunwald Gallery of Art.

​

Her work has been supported through residencies and fellowships at Sculpture Space, Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and Haystack Mountain School of Craft. Pennington has completed public sculpture commissions and installations for Indiana University, the Kinsey Institute, the Chicago Sculpture International Sculpture in the Parks program, and the Indianapolis Art Center, including major figurative bronze commissions honoring Alfred C. Kinsey and Ryan White.

​

Her sculptures are held in the collections of the Kinsey Institute, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana University, and the International Center for the Arts in Italy.