Roxanna Meléndez was born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, but now lives in New York City. Ever since she was nine years old she wanted to be a painter. One day, she convinced her mother to take her to the local high school to sit in the only art class that was being offered in town at the time. She was only eleven years old. Roxanna reacted to the opportunity with fascination and fantasized about herself being a painter some day. “Unfortunately, everyone around me discouraged me from attaining that dream. I never went for a degree in art but found my voice in painting nonetheless,” she said. In the fall of 1977, Roxanna came to study social work in New York City. It was then that she decided that her love for painting could wait no more. So, while learning on her own and later attending courses at the School of Visual Arts and at Hunter College of CUNY, Roxanna began to make reality her childhood calling.
Roxanna’s paintings reflect a sense of boldness as well as sensibility. Her use of color and the rawness of her depictions make this artist a fearless colorist and an expressionist. The images and spontaneity of Roxanna’s execution, project a wide range of human emotions oscillating between figuration and abstraction. Inspired by her imagination, real-life events, childhood memories, and her strong cultural roots, Roxanna brings to the canvas a world of excitement, curiosity, melancholy, and poetry.
Statement:
I was born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, but now live in New York City with an art studio in Asbury Park, NJ. I consider myself a colorist and an expressionist. My paintings reflect a sense of boldness as well as sensibility. The images that I use in my work project are a wide range of human conditions that oscillate between figuration and abstraction. Inspired by my imagination, real-life events, childhood memories, and my strong cultural roots and identity, I like to bring to the canvas a world of curiosity, excitement, irony, tension as well as poetry. The represented figures destroyed, revived, and/or restructured communicate the world of my imagination, my dreams, and my reality.