Melany Garcia Mercedes

Melany is the 2026 Roost Boost Scholarship Award Second Place Winner.

What inspires me as an artist is my relationship with my grandmother and her garden. Having grown up in the Dominican Republic and later moving to the United States, my work has become a space to explore the intersections of Dominican plant ecologies, memory, and materiality. I often create immersive environments where layered plant forms and color evoke a sense of protection, belonging, and the human relationship to nature.

Through the exploration of Dominican ecologies, I aim to reflect how diasporic memory blurs, distorts, and yet remains vividly present. By combining fragments of recollection with imperfect digital traces, such as Google Maps imagery, my paintings become environments shaped by nostalgia, dislocation, and an ongoing attempt to reconcile distance and place.