“Melissa Leandro uses textiles to evoke feelings of nostalgia, comfort, and lushness, drawing upon her memories of family homes, flea markets, and tropical landscapes. Though primarily made of fibers, her works also operate as photographs, drawings, maps, portraits, and paintings. Leandro masterfully combines multiple processes – jacquard weaving, embroidery, cyanotypes, and more – to create singular textiles reflective of her complex perspective and lived experiences.” – Mia Lopez, Independent Curator, Chicago
“Leandro’s focus on history, both her own and a collective history, allows her to create thoughtful work that engages people in different ways.” – Jade Powers, Assistant Curator, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
In Melissa Leandro’s practice, she explores her cultural identity and family memories, creating vibrant, layered textile works that are rich in topographical texture and infused with both drawn and collected imagery. Her pieces are crafted using a blend of traditional and non-traditional techniques, including needlework, quilting, weaving, and dyeing. Through these processes, she reflects on personal moments from daily life while channeling thoughts of family history, childhood fantasies, and nostalgic cultural ephemera. Her work is shaped by both past and present experiences, particularly memories of her mother’s work as a housekeeper in Miami, her grandparents’ rural farm in Costa Rica, and her father’s career as a construction worker and builder. She views her practice as a platform for expressing her hybrid culture as a first-generation US Latinx artist, navigating between Miami, Chicago, and beyond.
Leandro’s pieces serve as embodiments of an imaginary oasis— a refuge that exists between reality and disillusionment. These artworks provide her with a space to rest and seek peace, offering a temporary escape from the social frustrations she observes in her urban environment. Through their creation, she can momentarily withdraw from the chaos around her. The textiles she creates often depict lush, flourishing landscapes—grasslands, rainforests, and blooming wild plants. Recurring floral motifs extend beyond the confines of the frame, creating environments without horizon lines, perspective, or clear endpoints. These elements reflect an imagined biodiversity, blending a fabricated relationship with nature. This tension is especially visible in her use of synthetic, appliquéd flowers—plastic imitations that are distinctly artificial and lifeless, yet were a constant presence in her childhood home as inexpensive, mass-produced décor.
Leandro’s woven scenes are often interrupted by patches of cut, sun-printed, and dyed fabric, which disrupt the integrity of the woven surface. The act of cutting holes in the fabric and then slowly mending them feels symbolic of her process of healing and reconciliation with the fragmentation she experiences in her life. Similarly, she uses bold brush strokes of shiny reflective foil to block out large sections of imagery, further disrupting the visual flow. Her relationship with nature has been distant, marked more by observation than direct interaction. Instead, she is confronted daily by the frustrations of trash-filled streets and neglected, underfunded neighborhoods in her city—experiences that inform the emotional landscape of her work.
Her interests have led her to explore large concepts of herpetology, entomology, and conservation, while simultaneously deepening her fascination with bioactive terrarium ecosystems. These small, self-sustaining environments can either thrive or quickly deteriorate depending on her care, or lack thereof. This dynamic of growth, change, and decay mirrors her own life, her art, and the city she inhabits. The resulting works she creates are an accumulation of dyed and printed residues, layered textures, and patches that evoke idyllic spaces—lush, thriving, and fictional paradises where both she and her audience can retreat. Through the process of constructing and maintaining these bioactive terrariums—sometimes by unintentionally damaging them—she finds a sense of control. This control, while limited to a small, contained ecosystem, stands in contrast to the external forces she cannot influence in the same way.
Leandro sees her artistic practice as a way to confront these complex emotions by exploring themes of control, vulnerability, and resilience. Ultimately, her work serves as a personal meditation on the fragility of life and the constant interplay between creation and decay, offering a place for both her and her audience to pause, reflect, and find solace in the process.
