Zona MACO 2024

JO-HS is delighted to present new paintings by Melissa Ríos at Booth EJ-30 for Zona MACO, 2024.

Ríos’s surreal visions splice together fragments of the physical and the metaphysical, the imaginary and the real.Figures, objects, architectural spaces, and abstractions overlap and aggregate, each circumscribed withinamorphous shapes that evoke both organic openings and violent slashes through the picture plane.

For Ríos, painting is a means of discovery. Inspired by an image, feeling, sensation, or text, the artist discoversnew visual, lyrical, and conceptual associations as she works. Applying a sensuous approach to the paintedsurface, Ríos materializes both physical and ineffable elements that stimulate meaning making. Each painting isaccompanied by a short verse written by the artist.

//

JO-HS se complace en presentar nuevas pinturas de Melissa Ríos en el stand EJ-30 para Zona MACO, 2024.

Las visiones surrealistas de Ríos unen fragmentos de lo físico y lo metafísico, lo imaginario y lo real. Figuras,objetos, espacios arquitectónicos y abstracciones se superponen y agregan, cada uno circunscrito dentro deformas amorfas que evocan tanto aberturas orgánicas como cortes violentos a través del plano de la imagen.

Para Ríos la pintura es un medio de descubrimiento. Inspirándose en una imagen, sentimiento, sensación o texto,la artista descubre nuevas asociaciones visuales, líricas y conceptuales mientras trabaja. Aplicando un enfoquesensual a la superficie pintada, Ríos materializa elementos tanto físicos como inefables que estimulan la creaciónde significado. Cada cuadro va acompañado de un breve verso escrito por la artista. 

Request a preview ︎︎︎

Biography 

Born in Costa Rica in 1986, Melissa Ríos lives and works in Mexico City. Mining the fertile ground between figuration and abstraction, Ríos draws on feminist, literary, and surrealist understandings of reality and its representation.

Ríos paints surreal, dream-like visions. Figures, objects, and abstracts overlap and aggregate like veils mediating between realms of experience. Full of emotional charge and presence, the paintings imagine the spaces between the physical and metaphysical, between imagination and experience.

With training in architecture and advertising, Ríos is a multidisciplinary artist and thinker. She is often involved in multiple projects at a time, taking on roles in art direction, interior design, product design, furniture and photography. She has exhibited her paintings in solo exhibitions at Galeria Cuarto 37 in 2021, Costa Rica and collective exhibitions in Valoarte 2020, Costa Rica and Queremos Pintar at the Regional Museum of San Ramón, Costa Rica. A former JO-HS fellow, Ríos’s work has been featured in group exhibitions with the gallery, the gallery’s contribution to Zona Maco 2023, and in her debut solo exhibition at JO-HS NY in September, 2023.

Learn more ︎︎︎