About Melissa Calderón
Artist Statement
I create bodies of conceptual work that focus on the social philosophical aspects of historical (re)memory, privilege, and consequence. My multi-media approach allows me to make work from various vantage points unencumbered by medium.
For over a decade, I have dedicated my practice to using embroidery - A skill taught to me as a child, passed down through generations of Puerto Rican seamstresses - to reinterpret and renegotiate this familial skill into a visual language of labor. Using raw linens/wood, the work highlights material and history with the personal/generational memory of home needleworking.
I received my art education from my own school of practical art experience that I call the "Mott Haven Art School"; a playful reference to my 17+ years living and working in the South Bronx artist community. With no formal art training, I researched and critiqued like a wry sociologist, figuring out my own path to creating work that allows me to speak of issues that affect not only me but the community in which I come from.
Bio
Self-taught multimedia artist Melissa Calderón has exhibited her work at El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Queens Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Portland Museum of Art, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Arsenal de la Puntilla, and Galeria 20/20 in Puerto Rico, SmackMellon among others. Melissa is a PEPATIAN artist; a South Bronx-based organization dedicated to creating, producing, and supporting contemporary multi-disciplinary art by Latino & Bronx-based artists founded by visual artist Pepon Osorio and dancer/choreographer Merian Soto. Her work has been included in such books as Frescos, 50 contemporary artists from Puerto Rico, Strange Material: Storytelling through Textile, and most recently in Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics by Arlene Davila.
In Fall 2019, Calderón completed NYC’s first new monument funded by the City of New York’s Percent for Art Commission and Monument Fund. Para Roberto, a monument dedicated to Roberto Clemente, is permanently installed in the South Bronx’s The HUB which won a 2020 NYC Public Design Commission’s 38th Annual Award for Excellence in Design. She was born and raised in The Bronx.
Resume
Contact
melissaacalderon{at}gmail{dot}com