MELISSA RÍOS

(1986, Costa Rica)

Based in Mexico City, Melissa Ríos works primarily in painting and drawing. Exploring the fertile ground between figuration and abstraction, Ríos draws on feminist, literary, and surrealist understandings of reality and its representation.

Her paintings depict surreal, dream-like visions where figures, objects, and abstract forms overlap and interact, creating layered compositions that mediate between different realms of experience. Emotionally charged and deeply introspective, her work contemplates the spaces between the physical and the metaphysical, between imagination and lived experience.

Melissa has an academic background in architecture and advertising design, which informs her multidisciplinary approach. Alongside her painting practice, she has worked in art direction, interior space design, product design, furniture, and photography.

Her work has been exhibited extensively, with solo shows including In the Margins of What You Call Reality (JO-HS, New York, 2024), Realities in Dialogue / Realidades en diálogo (JO-HS, New York, 2023), and Más allá del mundo que existe (Cuarto 37, Costa Rica, 2021). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, such as Anatomías (GARNA Gallery, Madrid, 2025), These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ (Room57 Gallery, New York, 2024), and Queremos Pintar (Regional Museum of San Ramón, Costa Rica, 2022).

Melissa was awarded the Erarta Foundation and ZSONAMACO Art Prize (Semi-Finalist, 2024) and has attended artist residencies, including the Mack Art Foundation in New York (2024) and JO-HS in Mexico City (2022). Her work has been featured in major publications such as Vogue, Galerie Magazine, Cultured Magazine, and ONDA MX.

INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST ︎︎︎