On expanses of beige linen, Melissa Calderón immortalizes pockets of a neighborhood or home area. Combining imagery from her childhood within the Bronx along with her household’s native Puerto Rico, the artist interprets acquainted landscapes and sights into vivid embroideries, preserving her recollections in thread.
The intimate compositions seize how neighborhoods and communities change, notably as long-time residents are displaced. Her present physique of labor, titled Gentrified Landscapes, explores “a spot that when was however is now between the 2 spurts of gentrified-led divestment and revitalization and the way this notably impacts the Bronx and Puerto Rico.”
Calderón embraces the potential of thread so as to add texture and emphasize the extra conceptual components of her work. “Villa Nueva (I’d Nonetheless be Puerto Rican even when born on the Moon),” for instance, drapes comfortable, inexperienced chenille throughout the composition like a lush cluster of vines. “Susceptible IV | My Underemployed Life sequence” contains a inexperienced couch unraveling into tangled fibers that spill off the canvas.
In her studio, Calderón focuses on the meditative, entrancing course of of sewing. Works start with a drawing that’s transferred to a sample and freehand rendered onto the linen. She enjoys the sluggish, methodical actions, which remind her “of instances I sewed with my grandmother, making Cabbage Patch Children garments to promote on the playground earlier than faculty began for the day. Embroidery takes me to a peaceful place the place solely the method issues.”
Presently, Calderón is engaged on just a few commissions and getting ready for a solo exhibition in Puerto Rico. She additionally lately started a large-scale work titled “Bodega Miles” that may stretch 40 inches vast and take greater than a yr to finish. You’ll be able to observe her progress on Instagram.
