My name is Armando Melendez. I come from Mexico, from a city that is Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico. I studied painting and I dedicate myself to the painting discipline. I became an abstract painter after going to an M.F.A. program at the New York Academy of Arts. I am forty-seven years old, am married, and I have three kids, triplets. I am in Vermont at my second residency. I did the first one in the Dominican Republic in Alto da Chivan.

My paintings deal with abstractions and, though I have formation in figurative painting, I became an abstract painter, because I believe painting is an act of freedom, an act of bravery, an act of daring issues that you have to identify.  So I have been searching within myself for why I do this, why is thing about painting. And the more I search within myself, the more I feel comfortable in the big chaos I built and then rebuilt again. It’s like the process of construction and destruction at the same time. It has always been like that.  Life and art should be parallel, and  my life is no different from that. My life has been like an on-going process of deconstruction and construction, sometimes pleasurable and sometimes it is very, very painful. But I think the more you get near and your art gets near to that is the more true to yourself you are. 

This is the main goal I am researching in myself and it’s been a difficult time sometimes in the painting in Mexico, because Mexico is a third world country that is not developed yet and abstract issues are taking place just now. I come to the United States, which has always been our neighbors, you know, Mexico and the United States, and you see all these images and all these things....I get all of these resources by searching in the materials, searching the technique in itself, looking for new elements that will give me more life to my paintings, more meaning to my paintings.

It has been fifteen years I have been working on the abstract issues. And I work in big formats. It is very different now in Vermont, different environment and different people, and the residency has been in that sense wonderful. In Mexico I work with other kinds of material. I work with marble dust and I find these beautiful materials in Mexico.  These are powdered pigments. They come from the trees. They powder leafs, they powder branches, and then you have these beautiful colors. I do the base with marble dust and the painting becomes very transparent. I didn’t want to bring all the right materials. I wanted access to the world, what’s there for me and not bring all the right stuff, you know. So I challenged myself to do that this time, and it has opened a new door for me. 

To me, painting and being an artist is that...open doors, every time, open doors, open doors, no closing, none of them. It is never easy, but it is never boring. This has been a very challenging process because of the interaction with people from all over the world. And the way you find yourself again in this process. So in a way painting is like a seek-and-search kind of a game…This is it for now...

Armando Melendez (Valadez). Painter.  Guadalajara, Mexico.  Master’s Degree in Architecture,  I.T.E.S.O; M.F.A., New York Academy of Arts.  Awards include Artist-in-Residence  at Fundacion Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic, and Vermont Studio Center, Vermont.   Mr. Melendez exhibits internationally, most recently at Contraste Gallery, Lausanne, Switzerland. triates19@hotmail.com

Armando Melendez