Groana Melendez

Groana Melendez
2016 Annual Juried Competition
Honorable Mention

Statement:
My practice explores hybridized and evolving identities as they relate to my own transnational experience in the Dominican Republic and the United States. I focus upon the complicated and fractured relationships within my Dominican family structure, bound up in the overarching issue of the representation of marginalized people. As I build my own family yet new fractures appear. I use video and photographic performances to explore the abiding tensions within families and cultures.

Bio:
Born in Brooklyn in 1984, Groana Melendez was raised between New York City and Santo Domingo. She holds an MFA from the Advanced Photographic Studies at the International Center of Photography-Bard Program. Groana graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Photograph from Syracuse University. She has participated in group exhibitions in China and Guadalupe, as well solo shows in the New York Public Library as well as ICP-Bard’s studio in Queens. She works and lives in New York City.

Artist’s website: www.groanamelendez.com