Geneva Mello

Jul 31

Charcoal. Acrylic, & Oil Paint

My found photo paintings and drawings embrace ambiguity. Painterly marks create imagery that evokes memory, with blurred identities and narratives, inviting viewers into a familiar, imagined past.

My paintings and drawings start from vintage, discarded photographs, pulled from the dust of antique store bargain bins, abandoned family albums, and overlooked corners of local history archives. These images, cast aside and unclaimed, become raw material for reimagining. Through the alchemy of paint and charcoal, I translate these static snapshots into layered, evocative compositions that drift between dream and memory. My work questions who gets remembered, who gets misremembered, and who gets erased. Most of the photographs I work from depict women. In revisiting and reimagining these images, I aim to elevate the narratives of our grandmothers, aunts, and community matriarchs. Their stories carry value, often lost or relegated to the margins. I see my work as a feminist act of recovery and reinterpretation, highlighting intimate, everyday scenes of forgotten women. By tapping into a collective memory, I explore how we construct the stories we tell about our pasts and ourselves. My nostalgic paintings and drawings are about memory and misremembrance. I want the viewer to find their own reflections in the fragments I’ve chosen to preserve and transform.

Artist Name: Geneva Mello
Artist Medium: Charcoal. Acrylic, & Oil Paint
Studio Address: 2935 Fernwood Dr., Lodi, CA 95242