Biography / Biografía

Elsa María Meléndez

Elsa María Meléndez born in Caguas, Puerto Rico (1974) with a 28-year artistic career. Exhibiting collectively in more than 95 exhibitions in the United States, Uruguay, Cuba, Ireland, Romania, Portugal, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. 

"Vengo de una isla de confusión" (2023) is Meléndez’s first solo museum exhibition outside of Puerto Rico. In 2022 the exhibition traveled to the Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, Alabama. Meléndez is a recipient of the 2023 Studios at MASS MoCA Puerto Rico Artist Fellows. She is a Commended artist and received the People’s Choice Award at the 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, National Portrait Gallery at Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. In 2019 she received the Flamboyán Artist Fellowship in partnership with NALAC, in addition was nominated for the 2019 USA Fellowship, United States Artists. Among other distinctions, she was invited to a mid-career exhibition, "Perreta al argumento" (2014) by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Museo Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina, San Juan. Received the Lexus Fellowship, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (2009).

This year (2024) Meléndez will represent Puerto Rico at the 15th edition of the Havana Biennial.

Her work is included in the contemporary art collections of the Rollins Museum of Art, Florida; Glendale Community College in California; Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, New Orleans; Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico; La Casa de Las Américas in Havana; Museo de Arte de Ponce; Ateneo Puertorriqueño; Lolita Rubial Foundation in Minas, Uruguay and, in the Museo de Arte de Caguas.

Her work has also been reviewed in "Hinca por ahí, escritos sobre artes y asuntos limítrofes", Nelson Rivera, Ediciones Callejón (2016), "Frescos: 50 Puerto Rican Artists under 35", Celina Nogueras, Muuaaa (2011) and, in the catalog published by Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña "Perreta al argumento: 18 años de producción de Elsa María Meléndez" (2015), among others. After completing the Fine Arts bachelor’s degree at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, she studied curatorship, registration and collection management at the Smithsonian Center for Education Museum Studies in Washington, D.C. and in SUAGM in Gurabo, Puerto Rico.